---
title: There was nothing to be done; the peasant could not shake himself fr… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: There was nothing to be done; the peasant could not shake himself free from Woe. Who acts: nothing, peasant. 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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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 2, sentence 39

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There was nothing to be done; the peasant could not shake himself free from Woe.

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**Who acts:** nothing, peasant · **What happens:** be, do, not shake · **To what, where:** peasant, Woe

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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 (nothing, peasant), 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:pg22373:36:39
# text = There was nothing to be done; the peasant could not shake himself free from Woe.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	peasant	peasant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	shake	shake	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
13	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obj	_	_
14	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	_
15	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	Woe	Woe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive · passive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **not** **shake** | could | the peasant | peasant |  | Woe |  | free *property* | vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent himself=Theme from woe=Trajectory |

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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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