---
title: She paused to listen to the sad words. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: She paused to listen to the sad words. Who acts: toss. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Tree-bound, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, The Tree-bound, sentence 129

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She paused to listen to the sad words.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** toss · **What happens:** pause, listen

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Tree-bound. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (toss), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg338:8:129
# text = She paused to listen to the sad words.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	paused	pause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pause** | past | toss |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **listen** | to-infinitive | toss *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the sad words | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to word=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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