Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Ghost Stories., part 1, sentence 38

The old man was just beginning to say: "Not much farther--" when the sack slipped from between his teeth, and the old woman fell to the ground and was smashed all to pieces.

Who acts: old man, sack, old woman · What happens: begin, say, slip, fall, smash · To what, where: pieces · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, sack, old woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 man	det
2	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 man	amod
3	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 beginning	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 beginning	aux
5	just	just	ADV	_	6 beginning	advmod
6	beginning	begin	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
7	to	to	PART	_	8 say	mark
8	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 beginning	xcomp
9	:	:	PUNCT	_	13 farther	punct
10	"	"	PUNCT	_	13 farther	punct
11	Not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	13 farther	advmod
12	much	much	ADV	_	13 farther	advmod
13	farther	far	ADV	Degree=Cmp	8 say	advmod
14	--	--	PUNCT	_	19 slipped	punct
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	19 slipped	punct
16	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	19 slipped	advmod
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 sack	det
18	sack	sack	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 slipped	nsubj
19	slipped	slip	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 beginning	parataxis
20	from	from	ADP	_	23 teeth	case
21	between	between	ADP	_	23 teeth	case
22	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 teeth	nmod:poss
23	teeth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 slipped	obl
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 fell	punct
25	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 fell	cc
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 woman	det
27	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 woman	amod
28	woman	woman	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 fell	nsubj
29	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 slipped	conj
30	to	to	ADP	_	32 ground	case
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 ground	det
32	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 fell	obl
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 smashed	cc
34	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	35 smashed	aux:pass
35	smashed	smash	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	29 fell	conj
36	all	all	ADV	_	38 pieces	advmod
37	to	to	ADP	_	38 pieces	case
38	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	35 smashed	obj
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 beginning	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	begin	past · progressive	the old man			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	the old man not said here		far property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	slip	past	the sack		from man's teeth	vn split-23.2 «NP V PP.co-patient»: agent=Patient from tooth=Co-Patient
4	fall	past	the old woman		to the ground	vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to ground=Theme
5	smash	past · passive	the old woman not said here	pieces		vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: piece=Theme

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.

Text: «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/51/38/