---
title: It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once to… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects. Who acts: lake, fisherman. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 5, with its dependency tr
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Magic and Witchcraft., part 5, sentence 84

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects.

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**Who acts:** lake, fisherman · **What happens:** use, sleep, take, catch, slumber · **To what, where:** advantage, quantity

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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 (lake, fisherman), 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:pg22373:46:84
# text = It used always to sleep on St. John's Night, but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to catch a quantity of its scaly subjects.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	St.	St.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:desc	_	_
8	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	Night	Night	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	16	advmod	_	_
16	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	advantage	advantage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	slumber	slumber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	quantity	quantity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
27	scaly	scaly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	subjects	subject	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | lake |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | lake *not said here* |  |  |  | on John  St.'s Night |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **take** | past | a fisherman | advantage of lake's slumber |  |  |  | once *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent advantage=Theme |
| 4 | **catch** | to-infinitive | a fisherman *not said here* | a quantity of lake's scaly subjects |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent quantity=Theme |
| 5 | **slumber** |  | lake |  |  |  |  |  | nom slumber «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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