---
title: Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, "What's to be done? how's on… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, "What's to be done? how's one to save one's life?" Who acts: Meantime. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, 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 III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 1, sentence 39

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Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, "What's to be done? how's one to save one's life?"

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**Who acts:** Meantime · **What happens:** sit, think, do, be, save · **To what, where:** one, life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Meantime), 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:pg22373:35:39
# text = Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, "What's to be done? how's one to save one's life?"
1	Meantime	meantime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
16	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
21	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	's	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | Meantime |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | Meantime *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **save** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Meantime *not said here* | one's life |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=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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