---
title: "There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices pr… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices prolong the strain. Who acts: two, three voices. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 2, 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/pg22373/36/140/)

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 2, sentence 140

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"There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices prolong the strain.

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**Who acts:** two, three voices · **What happens:** be, sing, say, prolong · **To what, where:** story, strain · **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 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two, three voices), 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:pg22373:36:140
# text = "There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices prolong the strain.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	are	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nmod	_	_
7	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
8	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	voices	voice	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	prolong	prolong	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	strain	strain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | two of merchants |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | gerund | two of merchants *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present |  | the story |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent story=Topic |
| 4 | **prolong** *in a quote* | present | three voices | the strain |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent strain=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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