Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 21, sentence 35
In a certain city, in a certain state, there once lived a merchant Nicholas with his wife.
What happens: live · To what, where: merchant, certain city
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In | in | ADP | _ | 4 city | case |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 city | det |
| 3 | certain | certain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 city | amod |
| 4 | city | city | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 lived | obl |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 state | punct |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 9 state | case |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 state | det |
| 8 | certain | certain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 state | amod |
| 9 | state | state | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 city | appos |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 city | punct |
| 11 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 13 lived | expl |
| 12 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 13 lived | advmod |
| 13 | lived | live | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 merchant | det |
| 15 | merchant | merchant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 lived | obj |
| 16 | Nicholas | Nicholas | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 merchant | appos |
| 17 | with | with | ADP | _ | 19 wife | case |
| 18 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 19 wife | nmod:poss |
| 19 | wife | wife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 lived | obl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 lived | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | live | past | a merchant | a certain city; there | with NICHOLAS's wife; once property | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme merchant=Location |
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 Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Project Gutenberg book 62509 (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/pg62509/21/35/