---
title: As they approached, the bear stood erect with a hand on his thigh. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: As they approached, the bear stood erect with a hand on his thigh. Who acts: arrows, bear. 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 161

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As they approached, the bear stood erect with a hand on his thigh.

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**Who acts:** arrows, bear · **What happens:** approach, stand · **To what, where:** thigh

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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 (arrows, bear), 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:pg338:7:161
# text = As they approached, the bear stood erect with a hand on his thigh.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	approached	approach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	erect	erect	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	thigh	thigh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **approach** | past | arrows *= arrow* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | the bear |  |  | distance's thigh |  | with a hand; erect *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on thigh=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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