---
title: Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the water? — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the water? Who acts: I, muskrat. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Muskrat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/4/65/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Old Indian Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/) / [Iktomi and the Muskrat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/4/) / 65

# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Muskrat, sentence 65

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the water?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, muskrat · **What happens:** not know, run · **To what, where:** water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, muskrat), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg338:4:65
# text = Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the water?
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	muskrat	muskrat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
10	through	through	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **run** | would | the muskrat |  |  | the water |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through water=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/4/64/)
- next →: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/4/66/)
- ↑ back to [Iktomi and the Muskrat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg338/4/)