---
title: The Turtle in a whispered reply said: “We shall die!” — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The Turtle in a whispered reply said: “We shall die!” Who acts: Turtle, We. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Warlike Seven, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, The Warlike Seven, sentence 50

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The Turtle in a whispered reply said: “We shall die!”

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**Who acts:** Turtle, We · **What happens:** whisper, say, die · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Warlike Seven. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Turtle, We), 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:pg338:15:50
# text = The Turtle in a whispered reply said: “We shall die!”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Turtle	Turtle	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | the Turtle in a whispered reply |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **die** *in a quote* | shall | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

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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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