---
title: The stepmother's daughters tried to do so, but the birds almost peck… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The stepmother's daughters tried to do so, but the birds almost pecked their eyes out, and would not let them gather the berries. Who acts: daughters, birds. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, with its dependency tree a
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/35/131/)

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, sentence 131

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The stepmother's daughters tried to do so, but the birds almost pecked their eyes out, and would not let them gather the berries.

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**Who acts:** daughters, birds · **What happens:** try, do, peck out, not let, gather · **To what, where:** eyes, birds, berries

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. 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 (daughters, birds), 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:pg22373:35:131
# text = The stepmother's daughters tried to do so, but the birds almost pecked their eyes out, and would not let them gather the berries.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	pecked	peck	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	out	out	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	gather	gather	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	berries	berry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the stepmother's daughters |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the stepmother's daughters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **peck out** | past | the birds | birds's eyes |  |  |  | almost, out *property* | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **let** | would | the birds *not said here* | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **gather** | infinitive | birds *= bird* *not said here* | the berries |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent berry=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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