---
title: The young man stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo a… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The young man stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they dropped dead to the ground. Who acts: young man, men. 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 48

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The young man stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they dropped dead to the ground.

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**Who acts:** young man, men · **What happens:** stand, count, drop · **To what, where:** buffalo, fingers, ground

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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 (young man, men), 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:pg338:8:48
# text = The young man stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they dropped dead to the ground.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	calmly	calmly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	counting	count	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
17	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the young man |  |  |  |  | calmly *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **count** | gerund | the young man *not said here* | the buffalo |  | One's fingers |  |  | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent buffalo=Theme |
| 3 | **drop** | past | men *= man* |  |  | the ground |  | dead *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme to ground=Trajectory |

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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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