---
title: He chopped away the frozen ground on the top with the axe, and then… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: He chopped away the frozen ground on the top with the axe, and then he took to the shovel. Who acts: man. 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 80

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He chopped away the frozen ground on the top with the axe, and then he took to the shovel.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** chop away, freeze, take · **To what, where:** frozen ground, top

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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 (man), 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:pg22373:13:80
# text = He chopped away the frozen ground on the top with the axe, and then he took to the shovel.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	chopped	chop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	away	away	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	frozen	freeze	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	shovel	shovel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chop away** | past | man | the frozen ground |  | the top with the axe |  | away *property* | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent ground=Patient on top=Location |
| 2 | **freeze** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **take** | past | man |  |  |  | then | to the shovel *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to shovel=Result |

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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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