---
title: So he laid the mill-stones on their backs, and made them go on in fr… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: So he laid the mill-stones on their backs, and made them go on in front of him. Who acts: Ivan, stones. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 3, 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 3, sentence 10

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So he laid the mill-stones on their backs, and made them go on in front of him.

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**Who acts:** Ivan, stones · **What happens:** lay, make, go · **To what, where:** mill stones, backs, stones, front

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ivan, stones), 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:pg22373:37:10
# text = So he laid the mill-stones on their backs, and made them go on in front of him.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	mill	mill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past | Ivan | the mill stones |  | stones's backs |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent stone=Theme on back=Destination |
| 2 | **make** | past | Ivan *not said here* | stones *= stone* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | infinitive | stones *= stone* *not said here* |  |  | front of Ivan |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on front=Location |

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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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