---
title: Then they pitched forward, kicking their heels in the air. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they pitched forward, kicking their heels in the air. Who acts: Others. 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 87

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Then they pitched forward, kicking their heels in the air.

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**Who acts:** Others · **What happens:** pitch, kick · **To what, where:** heels, air

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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 (Others), 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:pg338:6:87
# text = Then they pitched forward, kicking their heels in the air.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	pitched	pitch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	kicking	kick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pitch** | past | Others *= other* |  |  |  | then | forward *property* | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **kick** | gerund | Others *= other* *not said here* | Others's heels |  | the air |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent heel=Patient in air=Location |

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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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