---
title: Very long ago, say the old folks; beyond the memory even of our grea… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: Very long ago, say the old folks; beyond the memory even of our great-grandfathers. Who acts: you. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 4, 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 4, sentence 121

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Very long ago, say the old folks; beyond the memory even of our great-grandfathers.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** say · **To what, where:** old folks · **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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg22373:38:121
# text = Very long ago, say the old folks; beyond the memory even of our great-grandfathers.
1	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	folks	folk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	beyond	beyond	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	memory	memory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	even	even	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
16	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	grandfathers	grandfather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | the old folks |  |  |  | beyond the memory of our great grandfathers; ago *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent folk=Topic |

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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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