---
title: A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the marshes. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the marshes. Who acts: group. 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 32

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A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the marshes.

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**Who acts:** group · **What happens:** dance, feast · **To what, where:** marshes

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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 (group), 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:pg338:2:32
# text = A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the marshes.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	group	group	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	feasting	feast	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	marshes	marsh	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dance** | past · progressive | a group of wild ducks |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **feast** | gerund | a group of wild ducks *not said here* |  |  | the marshes |  |  | vn dine-39.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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