---
title: The Kit Fox is a swift animal, and for a long time he kept ahead of… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Kit Fox is a swift animal, and for a long time he kept ahead of the Buffalo. Who acts: Kit Fox, Fox. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Girl Who Was the Ring [1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Girl Who Was the Ring \[1\], sentence 144

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The Kit Fox is a swift animal, and for a long time he kept ahead of the Buffalo.

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**Who acts:** Kit Fox, Fox · **What happens:** be, keep · **To what, where:** swift animal

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Girl Who Was the Ring \[1\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kit Fox, Fox), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66596:7:144
# text = The Kit Fox is a swift animal, and for a long time he kept ahead of the Buffalo.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Kit	kit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	swift	swift	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
16	ahead	ahead	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	Buffalo	Buffalo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | the Kit Fox | a swift animal |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **keep** | past | Fox |  |  |  | time | of the Buffalo; ahead *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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:** «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Project Gutenberg book 66596 (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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