---
title: I wondered if among the wild rice some spirit voice was talking. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: I wondered if among the wild rice some spirit voice was talking. Who acts: I, spirit voice. 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 16

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I wondered if among the wild rice some spirit voice was talking.

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**Who acts:** I, spirit voice · **What happens:** wonder, talk

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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 (I, spirit voice), 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:pg338:4:16
# text = I wondered if among the wild rice some spirit voice was talking.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wondered	wonder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
4	among	among	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
8	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
9	spirit	spirit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **talk** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · progressive | some spirit voice |  |  |  |  | among the wild rice | vn talk-37.5 «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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