---
title: If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!" — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!" Who acts: I, Ivan. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/33/16/)

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 15, sentence 16

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If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!"

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**Who acts:** I, Ivan · **What happens:** eat, be, let, kill · **To what, where:** Ivan, me

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Ivan), 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:pg22373:33:16
# text = If I am, then I will eat him; but if he is, then let him kill me!"
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
17	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | future | I | Ivan |  |  | then |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 2 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | Ivan |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **let** | infinitive | I *not said here* | Ivan |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **kill** | infinitive | Ivan *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |

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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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