---
title: Not knowing when the next meal would be, he meant to eat enough now… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Not knowing when the next meal would be, he meant to eat enough now to last some time. Who acts: meal, next meal. 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 8

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Not knowing when the next meal would be, he meant to eat enough now to last some time.

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**Who acts:** meal, next meal · **What happens:** not know, be, mean, eat, last · **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 (meal, next meal), 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:pg338:4:8
# text = Not knowing when the next meal would be, he meant to eat enough now to last some time.
1	Not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
2	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
3	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	meal	meal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	last	last	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | gerund | meal *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **be** | would | the next meal |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **mean** | past | meal |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **eat** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | meal *not said here* |  |  |  | now | enough *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **last** | to-infinitive | meal *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: agent=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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