---
title: The houses were different; the people were all strangers to him. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The houses were different; the people were all strangers to him. Who acts: houses, people. 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 172

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The houses were different; the people were all strangers to him.

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**Who acts:** houses, people · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** strangers, road

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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 (houses, people), 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:pg22373:52:172
# text = The houses were different; the people were all strangers to him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	det	_	_
10	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the houses |  |  |  |  | different *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the people | all strangers | road |  |  |  | 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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