---
title: “The buffalo blood, too, must be purified before I ask a blessing up… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “The buffalo blood, too, must be purified before I ask a blessing upon it,” thought the badger. Who acts: badger. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Badger and the Bear, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, The Badger and the Bear, sentence 135

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“The buffalo blood, too, must be purified before I ask a blessing upon it,” thought the badger.

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**Who acts:** badger · **What happens:** purify, ask, think · **To what, where:** buffalo blood, blessing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Badger and the Bear. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (badger), 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:pg338:7:135
# text = “The buffalo blood, too, must be purified before I ask a blessing upon it,” thought the badger.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	purified	purify	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	parataxis	_	_
11	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	blessing	blessing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
20	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	badger	badger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **purify** *in a quote* | must · passive |  | the buffalo blood |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present | the badger *= badger* | a blessing |  |  |  | upon blood | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent blessing=Recipient |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the badger |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |

<!-- .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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