---
title: He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing with honest hunting. Who acts: IKTOMI. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Ducks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Ducks, sentence 11

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He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing with honest hunting.

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**Who acts:** IKTOMI · **What happens:** prefer, spread, earn · **To what, where:** snare, smallest thing

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Ducks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (IKTOMI), 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:pg338:2:11
# text = He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing with honest hunting.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	prefers	prefer	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	snare	snare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	rather	rather	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	10	cc	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	earn	earn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	smallest	small	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	13	amod	_	_
13	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	honest	honest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	hunting	hunting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** | present | IKTOMI |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **spread** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | IKTOMI *not said here* | a snare |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location snare=Theme |
| 3 | **earn** | to-infinitive | IKTOMI *not said here* | the smallest thing |  |  |  | with honest hunting | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme |

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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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