---
title: At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat sti… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat still and stiff as a stone image. Who acts: Iktomi. 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 6

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At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat still and stiff as a stone image.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** cease, sway, sit · **To what, where:** last, 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 (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:pg338:3:6
# text = At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat still and stiff as a stone image.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	ceased	cease	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	sway	sway	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	backward	backward	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
15	still	still	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	stiff	stiff	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	image	image	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cease** | past | Iktomi |  |  | last |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sway** | to-infinitive | Iktomi *not said here* | Iktomi's body |  |  |  | backward *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location body=Theme |
| 3 | **sit** | past |  |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «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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