---
title: The Russian merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The Russian merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as a rat. Who acts: Russian merchant. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 3, sentence 158

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The Russian merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as a rat.

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**Who acts:** Russian merchant · **What happens:** have, turn, leave · **To what, where:** nothing, Russian

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Russian merchant), 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:pg22373:13:158
# text = The Russian merchant had nothing to turn to--he was left as poor as a rat.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Russian	Russian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	obl	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	rat	rat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	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 | **have** | past | the Russian merchant | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 2 | **turn** | to-infinitive | the Russian merchant *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **leave** | past · passive |  | Russian |  |  |  | as poor; as a rat | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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