---
title: One by one the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: One by one the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing. Who acts: One, heads. 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 46

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One by one the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing.

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**Who acts:** One, heads · **What happens:** fall, graze · **To what, where:** sweet grass

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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 (One, heads), 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:pg338:8:46
# text = One by one the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nsubj	_	_
2	by	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	1	nmod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	grazing	graze	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | past | One by one |  |  | the sweet grass |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme upon grass=Location |
| 2 | **graze** | past · progressive | heads *= head* | the sweet grass *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grass=Experiencer |

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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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