---
title: The robbers were frightened out of their wits, flung away their spoi… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The robbers were frightened out of their wits, flung away their spoil and scampered off. Who acts: robbers. 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 119

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The robbers were frightened out of their wits, flung away their spoil and scampered off.

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**Who acts:** robbers · **What happens:** frighten, fling away, scamper off, spoil · **To what, where:** robbers, wits, spoil

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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 (robbers), 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:pg22373:16:119
# text = The robbers were frightened out of their wits, flung away their spoil and scampered off.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	wits	wit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	flung	fling	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
11	away	away	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	spoil	spoil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	scampered	scamper	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
16	off	off	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | the robbers |  | robbers's wits |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **fling away** | participle |  | robbers's spoil |  |  |  | away *property* | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spoil=Theme |
| 3 | **scamper off** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **spoil** |  | robbers *= robber* |  |  |  |  |  | nom spoil «possession 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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