---
title: All along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb, till at last h… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: All along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb, till at last he chanced upon the old stake and the deeply worn footpath. Who acts: water. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Manstin, the Rabbit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Manstin, the Rabbit, sentence 76

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All along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb, till at last he chanced upon the old stake and the deeply worn footpath.

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**Who acts:** water · **What happens:** try, climb, chance · **To what, where:** last

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Manstin, the Rabbit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg338:14:76
# text = All along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb, till at last he chanced upon the old stake and the deeply worn footpath.
1	All	all	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
2	along	along	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	slippery	slippery	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	vainly	vainly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	till	till	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	chanced	chance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
17	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	stake	stake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
23	deeply	deeply	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	worn	worn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	footpath	footpath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | water |  |  |  |  | along the slippery bank; all, vainly *property* | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **climb** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | water *not said here* | last |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location last=Theme |
| 3 | **chance** | past | water | last *not said here* |  |  |  | upon the old stake and the worn footpath | vn risk-94-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent last=Pivot |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Project Gutenberg book 338 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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