---
title: Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand, he star… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand, he started off with a hop and a leap. 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 25

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Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand, he started off with a hop and a leap.

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**Who acts:** IKTOMI · **What happens:** snatch up, start off · **To what, where:** slender willow stick

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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:pg338:2:25
# text = Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand, he started off with a hop and a leap.
1	Snatching	snatch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
2	up	up	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	slender	slender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	willow	willow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	left	left	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	off	off	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hop	hop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	leap	leap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **snatch up** | gerund | IKTOMI *not said here* | a slender willow stick |  |  |  | with IKTOMI's free left hand | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Theme |
| 2 | **start off** | past | IKTOMI |  |  |  |  | with a hop and a leap | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V PP.subeventuality»: agent=Eventuality with hop=Subeventuality |

<!-- .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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