---
title: "Well, there was a time when I had nothing to eat, but now, thank God! — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "Well, there was a time when I had nothing to eat, but now, thank God! Who acts: idea. 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 86

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"Well, there was a time when I had nothing to eat, but now, thank God!

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**Who acts:** idea · **What happens:** be, have, eat, thank · **To what, where:** time, nothing, God

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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 (idea), 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:pg22373:36:86
# text = "Well, there was a time when I had nothing to eat, but now, thank God!
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	thank	thank	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
19	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | a time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | past | a idea *= idea* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | a idea *= idea* *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **thank** *speech: thank* *in a quote* | present |  |  | God |  | now |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent god=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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