---
title: "I saw them, my friends! only it was a long while ago. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "I saw them, my friends! only it was a long while ago. Who acts: Heigh, friend. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 9, 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 9, sentence 108

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"I saw them, my friends! only it was a long while ago.

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**Who acts:** Heigh, friend · **What happens:** see, be · **To what, where:** pursuers, long while

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Heigh, friend), 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:pg22373:27:108
# text = "I saw them, my friends! only it was a long while ago.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	_
15	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | past | Heigh | pursuers *= pursuer* |  |  |  | ago *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | friend | a long while |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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