---
title: Wordless, like a bashful Indian maid, the avenger ate in silence the… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Wordless, like a bashful Indian maid, the avenger ate in silence the food set before him on the ground in front of his crossed shins. Who acts: avenger. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Shooting of the Red Eagle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Shooting of the Red Eagle, sentence 16

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Wordless, like a bashful Indian maid, the avenger ate in silence the food set before him on the ground in front of his crossed shins.

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**Who acts:** avenger · **What happens:** eat, cross · **To what, where:** food set, silence

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Shooting of the Red Eagle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (avenger), 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:pg338:9:16
# text = Wordless, like a bashful Indian maid, the avenger ate in silence the food set before him on the ground in front of his crossed shins.
1	Wordless	wordless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	bashful	bashful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	Indian	Indian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	avenger	avenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	set	set	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
17	before	before	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
26	crossed	cross	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	27	amod	_	_
27	shins	shin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | past | the avenger | the food set |  | silence | before chieftain | on the ground; in front of chieftain's crossed shins | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent set=Patient |
| 2 | **cross** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=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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