Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 32, sentence 21

When she wrote a letter to her father and mother she used to tie it to the neck of her little dog, which would run all the way home and bring an answer back.

Who acts: Tsarévna, little dog · What happens: write, use, tie, run, bring back · To what, where: letter, father, way, answer

This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tsarévna, little dog), 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	When	when	ADV	PronType=Int	3 wrote	advmod
2	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 wrote	nsubj
3	wrote	write	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 letter	det
5	letter	letter	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 wrote	obj
6	to	to	ADP	_	8 father	case
7	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 father	nmod:poss
8	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 wrote	obl
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 mother	cc
10	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 father	conj
11	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 used	nsubj
12	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 father	acl:relcl
13	to	to	PART	_	14 tie	mark
14	tie	tie	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 used	xcomp
15	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 tie	obj
16	to	to	ADP	_	18 neck	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 neck	det
18	neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 tie	obl
19	of	of	ADP	_	22 dog	case
20	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	22 dog	nmod:poss
21	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 dog	amod
22	dog	dog	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 neck	nmod
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 run	punct
24	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	26 run	nsubj
25	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	26 run	aux
26	run	run	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	22 dog	parataxis
27	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	29 way	det:predet
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 way	det
29	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 run	obl:unmarked
30	home	home	ADV	_	26 run	advmod
31	and	and	CCONJ	_	32 bring	cc
32	bring	bring	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 run	conj
33	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	34 answer	det
34	answer	answer	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 bring	obj
35	back	back	ADV	_	32 bring	advmod
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 wrote	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	write	past	Tsarévna	a letter	Tsarévna's father and mother		vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent letter=Topic to father=Recipient
2	use	past	Tsarévna	Tsarévna's father and mother not said here			vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent father=Theme clause=Eventuality
3	tie	to-infinitive	Tsarévna not said here	letter		to the neck of Tsarévna's little dog	vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient to neck=Co-Patient
4	run	would	Tsarévna's little dog	all way		home property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	bring back	infinitive	Tsarévna's little dog not said here	a answer			vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent answer=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 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/pg62509/32/21/

🌲 Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 32, sentence 21

The tree

Pragmatics

Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 32, sentence 21