---
title: "Couldn't a service[405] be performed?" they said. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "Couldn't a service[405] be performed?" they said. Who acts: father. 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 48

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"Couldn't a service\[405\] be performed?" they said.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** not perform, say · **To what, where:** service · **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 (father), 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:pg22373:53:48
# text = "Couldn't a service[405] be performed?" they said.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	[	[	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	405	405	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	5	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	]	]	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	7	punct	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	performed	perform	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **perform** *in a quote* | could · passive |  | a service |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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