---
title: If it had not been for that, I should have been starved to death lon… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: If it had not been for that, I should have been starved to death long ago!" Who acts: game. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 3, 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 3, sentence 5

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If it had not been for that, I should have been starved to death long ago!"

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**Who acts:** game · **What happens:** have, not be, starve · **To what, where:** I

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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 (game), 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:pg22373:44:5
# text = If it had not been for that, I should have been starved to death long ago!"
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	starved	starve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
16	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
17	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | game |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | for that | tree rules |
| 3 | **starve** | should · perfect · passive |  | I |  |  |  | to death; ago *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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