---
title: And it was not to make any difference whether he was alive or dead. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: And it was not to make any difference whether he was alive or dead. Who acts: two, Whichever. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., 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, Ghost Stories., part 2, sentence 140

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And it was not to make any difference whether he was alive or dead.

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**Who acts:** two, Whichever · **What happens:** not be, be

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., 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 (two, Whichever), 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:pg22373:52:140
# text = And it was not to make any difference whether he was alive or dead.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	difference	difference	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | two |  |  |  |  | make *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** | past | Whichever |  |  |  |  | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | Whichever *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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