---
title: He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long tee… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow. Who acts: IKTOMI, feet. 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 141

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He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow.

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**Who acts:** IKTOMI, feet · **What happens:** hear, crack, eat out · **To what, where:** feet, small round bones, oily marrow

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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, feet), 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:pg338:2:141
# text = He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	crack	crack	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
11	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|Typo=Yes|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	oily	oily	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	marrow	marrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | IKTOMI | feet *= foot* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **crack** | infinitive | feet *= foot* *not said here* | the small round bones |  |  |  | with feet's strong long teeth | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent bone=Patient with tooth=Instrument |
| 3 | **eat out** | present | IKTOMI *not said here* | the oily marrow |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent marrow=Patient |

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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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