---
title: When I was young, the grain was large and plentiful, but after a tim… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: When I was young, the grain was large and plentiful, but after a time it began to grow smaller and smaller." Who acts: I, grain. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 1, sentence 55

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When I was young, the grain was large and plentiful, but after a time it began to grow smaller and smaller."

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**Who acts:** I, grain · **What happens:** be, begin, grow · **To what, where:** time

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, grain), 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:pg22373:56:55
# text = When I was young, the grain was large and plentiful, but after a time it began to grow smaller and smaller."
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	plentiful	plentiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	after	after	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	xcomp	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | young *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the grain |  |  |  |  | large *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | the grain *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **begin** | past | grain | a time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **grow** | to-infinitive | grain *not said here* |  |  |  |  | small *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «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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