---
title: At length, stooping over the white dried bones, he took hold of one… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: At length, stooping over the white dried bones, he took hold of one and shook it. Who acts: length, 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 69

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At length, stooping over the white dried bones, he took hold of one and shook it.

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**Who acts:** length, Iktomi · **What happens:** stoop, dry, take, shake · **To what, where:** white dried bones, hold, length

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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 (length, 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:pg338:3:69
# text = At length, stooping over the white dried bones, he took hold of one and shook it.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	stooping	stoop	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	over	over	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	dried	dry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	amod	_	_
9	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stoop** | gerund | length *not said here* |  |  | the white dried bones |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over bone=Location |
| 2 | **dry** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **take** | past | Iktomi | hold of one |  | length |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent hold=Theme at length=Asset |
| 4 | **shake** | past | Iktomi *not said here* | hold |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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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