---
title: He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of the pot w… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon. 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 22

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He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** hum, beat · **To what, where:** old dance song, edge

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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:pg338:4:22
# text = He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	hummed	hum	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
5	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|Typo=Yes|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
19	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	horn	horn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	spoon	spoon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hum** | past | Iktomi | a old dance song |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent song=Topic |
| 2 | **beat** | present | Iktomi *not said here* |  |  | the edge of the pot |  | with Iktomi's horn spoon; gently *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location with spoon=Theme |

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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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