---
title: The king lays the matter before "his nobles and generals," but they… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The king lays the matter before "his nobles and generals," but they can make nothing of it. Who acts: king, generals. 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 36

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The king lays the matter before "his nobles and generals," but they can make nothing of it.

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**Who acts:** king, generals · **What happens:** lay, make · **To what, where:** matter, nobles, nothing

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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 (king, generals), 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:pg22373:37:36
# text = The king lays the matter before "his nobles and generals," but they can make nothing of it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lays	lay	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	before	before	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	nobles	noble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	generals	general	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
18	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	17	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|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** | present | the king | the matter |  | king's nobles and generals |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent matter=Theme before noble=Destination |
| 2 | **make** | can | generals *= general* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset nothing=Product |

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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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