---
title: "As a feather on water!" replies the king, who can scarcely draw his… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "As a feather on water!" replies the king, who can scarcely draw his breath beneath the crushing weight of the hand he has won. Who acts: feather, king. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/44/162/)

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Magic and Witchcraft., part 3, sentence 162

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"As a feather on water!" replies the king, who can scarcely draw his breath beneath the crushing weight of the hand he has won.

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**Who acts:** feather, king · **What happens:** reply, draw, crush, win · **To what, where:** king, breath, hand

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., 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 (feather, king), 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:pg22373:44:162
# text = "As a feather on water!" replies the king, who can scarcely draw his breath beneath the crushing weight of the hand he has won.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	As	as	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	replies	reply	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	draw	draw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl:relcl	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	crushing	crush	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	amod	_	_
22	weight	weight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
26	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	won	win	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	25	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | present | a feather on water | the king |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |
| 2 | **draw** | can | the king | feather's breath |  |  |  | beneath the crushing weight of the hand; scarcely *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breath=Theme |
| 3 | **crush** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **win** | present · perfect | feather | the hand *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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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