---
title: I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers. Who acts: I, you. 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 15

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I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers.

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** keep, change · **To what, where:** ten conditions, me

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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 (I, you), 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:pg338:6:15
# text = I could keep ten conditions if only you would change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	conditions	condition	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	into	into	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
16	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	bright	bright	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | could | I | ten conditions |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent condition=Theme |
| 2 | **change** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | you | me |  |  |  | into a bird; with long bright tail feathers | vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent i=Theme with feather=Co-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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