---
title: "How can I but stumble," replied the Steed, "when under the boarding… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "How can I but stumble," replied the Steed, "when under the boarding sits Ivan Popyalof?" Who acts: Steed. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, 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 II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, sentence 73

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"How can I but stumble," replied the Steed, "when under the boarding sits Ivan Popyalof?"

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**Who acts:** Steed · **What happens:** stumble, reply, sit · **To what, where:** Ivan, boarding · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, 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 (Steed), 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:pg22373:19:73
# text = "How can I but stumble," replied the Steed, "when under the boarding sits Ivan Popyalof?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	stumble	stumble	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Steed	steed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
15	under	under	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	boarding	boarding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
18	sits	sit	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
19	Ivan	Ivan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
20	Popyalof	Popyalof	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stumble** *in a quote* | can | the Steed *= steed* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: ask* | past | the Steed |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **sit** *in a quote* | present | the Steed *not said here* | Ivan |  | the boarding |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent ivan=Theme under boarding=Location |

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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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