---
title: Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground, stoo… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground, stood a brave in brown buckskins. Who acts: one rare bird. 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 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground, stood a brave in brown buckskins.

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**Who acts:** one rare bird · **What happens:** sit, stand · **To what, where:** tree, brave, ground

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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 (one rare bird), 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:pg338:6:55
# text = Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground, stood a brave in brown buckskins.
1	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
3	rare	rare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
11	beneath	beneath	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
17	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	brave	brave	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	buckskins	buckskin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | one rare bird |  |  | the tree |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on tree=Location |
| 2 | **stand** | past | one rare bird *not said here* | a brave |  | the ground |  | in brown buckskins; beneath *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent brave=Theme on ground=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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