---
title: Meanwhile the poor man sometimes had not so much as a morsel of brea… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Meanwhile the poor man sometimes had not so much as a morsel of bread, and his children--each one smaller than the other--were crying and begging for food. Who acts: poor man, children. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/35/153/)

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, sentence 153

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Meanwhile the poor man sometimes had not so much as a morsel of bread, and his children--each one smaller than the other--were crying and begging for food.

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**Who acts:** poor man, children · **What happens:** have, cry, beg · **To what, where:** much

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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 (poor man, children), 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:pg22373:35:153
# text = Meanwhile the poor man sometimes had not so much as a morsel of bread, and his children--each one smaller than the other--were crying and begging for food.
1	Meanwhile	meanwhile	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obj	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	morsel	morsel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	det	_	_
21	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
23	than	than	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	begging	beg	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	28	conj	_	_
31	for	for	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the poor man | much |  |  |  | as a morsel of bread; meanwhile, sometimes *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent much=Patient |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past · progressive | man's children |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | gerund | man's children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for food | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent for food=Topic |

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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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