---
title: If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be! — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be! Who acts: I. 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 8

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If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be!

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** handsome feathered creature

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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), 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:pg338:6:8
# text = If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be!
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	handsome	handsome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	feathered	feathered	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
10	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | I | a handsome feathered creature |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | would | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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