---
title: When a pair of strong hands lifted the Fish over the sputtering wate… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: When a pair of strong hands lifted the Fish over the sputtering water, he put his mouth downward. Who acts: pair. 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 51

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When a pair of strong hands lifted the Fish over the sputtering water, he put his mouth downward.

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**Who acts:** pair · **What happens:** lift, sputter, put · **To what, where:** Fish, sputtering water, mouth

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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 (pair), 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:pg338:15:51
# text = When a pair of strong hands lifted the Fish over the sputtering water, he put his mouth downward.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	pair	pair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
7	lifted	lift	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Fish	Fish	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	sputtering	sputter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	amod	_	_
13	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	downward	downward	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lift** | past | a pair of strong hands | the Fish |  | the sputtering water |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent fish=Theme over water=Destination |
| 2 | **sputter** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **put** | past | pair | pair's mouth |  |  |  | downward *property* | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent mouth=Goal |

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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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