---
title: Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying motionles… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying motionless under the sage grass. Who acts: Iktomi, round fur ball. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Coyote, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Coyote, sentence 14

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Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying motionless under the sage grass.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi, round fur ball · **What happens:** come, lie

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Coyote. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Iktomi, round fur ball), 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:pg338:5:14
# text = Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying motionless under the sage grass.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	conj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	fur	fur	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
12	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	motionless	motionless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	_
14	under	under	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	sage	sage	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Iktomi |  |  |  |  | near, thus *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **lie** | gerund | the round fur ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  | motionless *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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