---
title: There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted, but t… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted, but the third was a fool. Who acts: three brothers, two, third. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 5, 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 5, sentence 4

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There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted, but the third was a fool.

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**Who acts:** three brothers, two, third · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** fool

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., 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 (three brothers, two, third), 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:pg22373:46:4
# text = There were once three brothers, of whom two were sharp-witted, but the third was a fool.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	obl	_	_
9	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	witted	witted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	third	third	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | three brothers |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | two |  |  |  |  | of three brothers; witted *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | past | the third | a fool |  |  |  |  | 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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