---
title: Opening wide his mouth he begged, “My friend, my friend, give me a b… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Opening wide his mouth he begged, “My friend, my friend, give me a bone to gnaw!” Who acts: Iktomi, friend. 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 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Opening wide his mouth he begged, “My friend, my friend, give me a bone to gnaw!”

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**Who acts:** Iktomi, friend · **What happens:** open, beg, give, gnaw · **To what, where:** mouth, bone, Iktomi · **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, friend), 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:pg338:4:77
# text = Opening wide his mouth he begged, “My friend, my friend, give me a bone to gnaw!”
1	Opening	open	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	csubj	_	_
2	wide	wide	ADV	RB	_	1	advmod	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
15	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	bone	bone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	gnaw	gnaw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | gerund |  | Iktomi's mouth |  |  |  | wide *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | Iktomi |  |  |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **give** *in a quote* | infinitive | My friend and my friend | a bone | Iktomi |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient bone=Theme |
| 4 | **gnaw** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | My friend and my friend *not said here* | a bone *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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