---
title: They ate up all my nice fat ducks!” muttered he, rocking his body to… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: They ate up all my nice fat ducks!” muttered he, rocking his body to and fro. Who acts: wolves. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi's Blanket, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi's Blanket, sentence 4

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They ate up all my nice fat ducks!” muttered he, rocking his body to and fro.

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**Who acts:** wolves · **What happens:** eat up, mutter, rock, fro · **To what, where:** nice fat ducks, Iktomi, body

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi's Blanket. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wolves), 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:pg338:3:4
# text = They ate up all my nice fat ducks!” muttered he, rocking his body to and fro.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	fat	fat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
11	muttered	mutter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	rocking	rock	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	fro	fro	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	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 | **eat up** | past | wolves *= wolf* | my nice fat ducks |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent duck=Patient |
| 2 | **mutter** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | wolves *= wolf* *not said here* | Iktomi |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Topic |
| 3 | **rock** *in a quote* | gerund | wolves *= wolf* *not said here* | Iktomi's body |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location body=Theme |
| 4 | **fro** *in a quote* | infinitive | wolves *= wolf* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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