---
title: In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes. 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 67

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In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** begin · **To what, where:** queer old tunes, strange low voice

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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:pg338:2:67
# text = In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
6	Iktomi	Iktomi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	queer	queer	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	tunes	tune	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Iktomi | IKTOMI's queer old tunes |  | a strange low voice |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tune=Eventuality |

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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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