---
title: In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify it… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify its remarks. Who acts: mistress. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 6, 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 6, sentence 21

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In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify its remarks.

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**Who acts:** mistress · **What happens:** throw, order, modify, remark · **To what, where:** vain, mistress, remarks

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter III. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mistress), 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:pg22373:40:21
# text = In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify its remarks.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
3	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	mistress	mistress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	throw	throw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	order	order	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	modify	modify	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	remarks	remark	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw** | present · do-support | vain's mistress | vain |  | vain |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **order** | infinitive | vain's mistress *not said here* |  | mistress |  |  |  | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent it=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **modify** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | vain's mistress *not said here* | mistress's remarks |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent remark=Patient |
| 4 | **remark** |  | mistress |  |  |  |  |  | nom remark «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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