---
title: Presently twelve spoonbills came flying thither, struck the moist ea… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Presently twelve spoonbills came flying thither, struck the moist earth, turned into fair maidens, and began to bathe. Who acts: twelve spoonbills. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 9, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 9, sentence 20

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Presently twelve spoonbills came flying thither, struck the moist earth, turned into fair maidens, and began to bathe.

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**Who acts:** twelve spoonbills · **What happens:** come, fly, strike, turn, begin, bathe · **To what, where:** moist earth, fair maidens

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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 (twelve spoonbills), 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:pg22373:27:20
# text = Presently twelve spoonbills came flying thither, struck the moist earth, turned into fair maidens, and began to bathe.
1	Presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	spoonbills	spoonbill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
6	thither	thither	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	moist	moist	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	bathe	bathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | twelve spoonbills |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fly** | gerund | twelve spoonbills *not said here* |  |  |  |  | thither *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **strike** | past | twelve spoonbills *not said here* | the moist earth |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent earth=Patient |
| 4 | **turn** | participle |  | the moist earth *not said here* |  | fair maidens |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme into maiden=Trajectory |
| 5 | **begin** | past | twelve spoonbills *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **bathe** | to-infinitive | twelve spoonbills *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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