---
title: And they set to work fighting; the dust flew like anything. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: And they set to work fighting; the dust flew like anything. Who acts: tapers, dust. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., 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, Ghost Stories., part 3, sentence 127

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And they set to work fighting; the dust flew like anything.

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**Who acts:** tapers, dust · **What happens:** set, work, fight, fly

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., 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 (tapers, dust), 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:pg22373:53:127
# text = And they set to work fighting; the dust flew like anything.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	set	set	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | present | tapers *= taper* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** | to-infinitive | tapers *= taper* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **fight** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **fly** | past | the dust |  |  |  |  | like anything | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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