---
title: Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder and star… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder and started off along the edge of the lake. 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 38

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Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder and started off along the edge of the lake.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** say, lay, start off · **To what, where:** this, firm hand, shoulder · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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:pg338:4:38
# text = Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder and started off along the edge of the lake.
1	Saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	csubj	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	1	obj	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	firm	firm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	muskrat	muskrat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	's	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	off	off	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	along	along	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	lake	lake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund |  | this |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent this=Topic |
| 2 | **lay** | past | Iktomi | a firm hand |  | the muskrat's shoulder |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme upon shoulder=Destination |
| 3 | **start off** | past | Iktomi *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along the edge of the lake | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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