---
title: He was feeble, his wife was a scold, and her daughters were as obsti… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: He was feeble, his wife was a scold, and her daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent. Who acts: man, wife, daughters. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 5, sentence 47

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He was feeble, his wife was a scold, and her daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent.

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**Who acts:** man, wife, daughters · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** scold

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, wife, daughters), 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:pg22373:39:47
# text = He was feeble, his wife was a scold, and her daughters were as obstinate as they were indolent.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	feeble	feeble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	scold	scold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	obstinate	obstinate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	indolent	indolent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	csubj	_	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 | **is** | past | man |  |  |  |  | feeble *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | man's wife | a scold |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | girl's daughters |  |  |  |  | obstinate *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | past | daughters *= daughter* |  |  |  |  | indolent *property* | tree rules |

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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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