---
title: It had been dark there before, but now it became darker still. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: It had been dark there before, but now it became darker still. Who acts: light. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 2, 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 2, sentence 124

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It had been dark there before, but now it became darker still.

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**Who acts:** light · **What happens:** be, become

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (light), 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:pg22373:20:124
# text = It had been dark there before, but now it became darker still.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	cop	_	_
4	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
6	before	before	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	darker	dark	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	xcomp	_	_
13	still	still	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · perfect | light |  |  | there |  | before, dark *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **become** | past | light |  |  |  | now; still | dark *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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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