---
title: To get down was utterly impossible, it seemed as if he must die of s… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: To get down was utterly impossible, it seemed as if he must die of starvation. Who acts: it, Katoma. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Magic and Witchcraft., part 2, sentence 144

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To get down was utterly impossible, it seemed as if he must die of starvation.

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**Who acts:** it, Katoma · **What happens:** get down, be, seem, die

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, Katoma), 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:pg22373:43:144
# text = To get down was utterly impossible, it seemed as if he must die of starvation.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	utterly	utterly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	starvation	starvation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get down** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | impossible, utterly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **die** *a condition, not said to happen* | must | Katoma |  |  |  |  | of starvation | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V PP.cause»: agent=Patient of starvation=Causer |

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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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