---
title: His black eyes showed a ring of white about them as he stared at the… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: His black eyes showed a ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground. Who acts: black eyes, 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 61

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His black eyes showed a ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground.

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**Who acts:** black eyes, Iktomi · **What happens:** show, stare · **To what, where:** ring

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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 (black eyes, 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:pg338:4:61
# text = His black eyes showed a ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nmod	_	_
9	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **show** | past | Iktomi's black eyes | a ring of white |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent ring=Recipient |
| 2 | **stare** | past | Iktomi |  |  |  |  | at the empty ground | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at ground=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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