---
title: “When I was very, very small, my mother marked them on my face with… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “When I was very, very small, my mother marked them on my face with a red hot fire. Who acts: fawn, mother. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Fawn, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Fawn, sentence 123

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“When I was very, very small, my mother marked them on my face with a red hot fire.

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**Who acts:** fawn, mother · **What happens:** be, mark · **To what, where:** spots, face

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Fawn. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fawn, mother), 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:pg338:6:123
# text = “When I was very, very small, my mother marked them on my face with a red hot fire.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	marked	mark	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
20	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past | the fawn *= fawn* |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **mark** *in a quote* | past | my mother | spots *= spot* |  | my face |  | with a red hot fire | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.theme PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme on face=Destination |

<!-- .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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