---
title: “Ho! who is there?” called out a curious old duck, still bobbing up… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ho! who is there?” called out a curious old duck, still bobbing up and down in the circular dance. Who acts: curious old duck. 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 39

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“Ho! who is there?” called out a curious old duck, still bobbing up and down in the circular dance.

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**Who acts:** curious old duck · **What happens:** call out, bob up · **To what, where:** curious old duck, circular dance

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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 (curious old duck), 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:pg338:2:39
# text = “Ho! who is there?” called out a curious old duck, still bobbing up and down in the circular dance.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ho	Ho	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	still	still	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	bobbing	bob	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	acl	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	down	down	ADV	RB	_	18	conj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	circular	circular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call out** *speech: assert* | present · passive |  | a curious old duck |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V» |
| 2 | **bob up** | gerund | a curious old duck *not said here* |  |  | the circular dance | still |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in dance=Location |

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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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