---
title: The girls were so frightened they didn't know whether they were aliv… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: The girls were so frightened they didn't know whether they were alive or dead. Who acts: lazybones. 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 33

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The girls were so frightened they didn't know whether they were alive or dead.

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**Who acts:** lazybones · **What happens:** frighten, not know, be · **To what, where:** girls · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (lazybones), 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:pg22373:53:33
# text = The girls were so frightened they didn't know whether they were alive or dead.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
10	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | the girls |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | lazybones *= lazybone* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | lazybones *= lazybone* |  |  |  |  | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | lazybones *= lazybone* *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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