---
title: Pressing his lips into straight lines and nodding his head slowly, h… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Pressing his lips into straight lines and nodding his head slowly, he bent over the wolf. Who acts: Iktomi. 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 16

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Pressing his lips into straight lines and nodding his head slowly, he bent over the wolf.

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**Who acts:** Iktomi · **What happens:** press, nod, bend · **To what, where:** lips, straight lines, head, wolf

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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), 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:pg338:5:16
# text = Pressing his lips into straight lines and nodding his head slowly, he bent over the wolf.
1	Pressing	press	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obj	_	_
4	into	into	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	straight	straight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	lines	line	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	nodding	nod	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	1	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	bent	bend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **press** | gerund | Iktomi *not said here* | Iktomi's lips |  | straight lines |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lip=Theme |
| 2 | **nod** | gerund | Iktomi *not said here* | Iktomi's head |  |  |  | slowly *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 3 | **bend** | past | Iktomi |  |  | the wolf |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over wolf=Location |

<!-- .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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