---
title: He peered through the long reeds from where he sat with his long hor… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He peered through the long reeds from where he sat with his long horn spoon in mid-air. Who acts: Iktomi. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Muskrat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Muskrat, sentence 12

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He peered through the long reeds from where he sat with his long horn spoon in mid-air.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** peer, sit · **To what, where:** mid-air

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Muskrat. 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:pg338:4:12
# text = He peered through the long reeds from where he sat with his long horn spoon in mid-air.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	peered	peer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	through	through	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	reeds	reed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	10	advmod	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
13	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	horn	horn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	spoon	spoon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	mid-air	mid-air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **peer** | past | Iktomi |  |  |  |  | through the long reeds | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent through reed=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | Iktomi |  |  | mid-air |  | with Iktomi's long horn spoon | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in mid-air=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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