---
title: Their language is simple and pleasantly quaint, their humor is natur… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Their language is simple and pleasantly quaint, their humor is natural and unobtrusive, and their descriptions, whether of persons or of events, are often excellent. Who acts: language, humor, descriptions, stories. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Cha
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 1, sentence 31

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Their language is simple and pleasantly quaint, their humor is natural and unobtrusive, and their descriptions, whether of persons or of events, are often excellent.

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**Who acts:** language, humor, descriptions, stories · **What happens:** be, humor, describe

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, 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 (language, humor, descriptions, stories), 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:pg22373:11:31
# text = Their language is simple and pleasantly quaint, their humor is natural and unobtrusive, and their descriptions, whether of persons or of events, are often excellent.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	pleasantly	pleasantly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	quaint	quaint	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	humor	humor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	natural	natural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	unobtrusive	unobtrusive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	descriptions	description	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	persons	person	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	appos	_	_
23	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	events	event	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
27	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	often	often	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | stories's language |  |  |  |  | simple *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | stories's language *not said here* |  |  |  |  | pleasantly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | present | stories's humor |  |  |  |  | natural *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | stories's humor *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **is** | present | stories's descriptions |  |  |  |  | excellent, often *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **humor** |  | stories *= story* |  |  |  |  |  | nom humor «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
| 7 | **describe** |  | stories *= story* |  |  |  |  |  | nom description «communication transitive»: poss=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:** «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.

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