---
title: Marko, his brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Marko, his brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold out. Who acts: brows, Marko. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 6, 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 6, sentence 105

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Marko, his brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold out.

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**Who acts:** brows, Marko · **What happens:** knit, contort, be, hold out · **To what, where:** Marko, legs

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brows, Marko), 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:pg22373:16:105
# text = Marko, his brows knit, his legs contorted, was scarcely able to hold out.
1	Marko	Marko	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	brows	brow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	knit	knit	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	appos	_	_
9	contorted	contort	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **knit** | present | Marko's brows | Marko *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent marko=Product |
| 2 | **contort** | participle |  | Marko's legs *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP.material V PP.product»: agent=Material |
| 3 | **is** | past | Marko |  |  |  |  | able, scarcely *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **hold out** | to-infinitive | Marko *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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