---
title: "Their mothers cursed them while still unborn," is the reply. " — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "Their mothers cursed them while still unborn," is the reply. " Who acts: mothers. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, 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, Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 2, sentence 18

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"Their mothers cursed them while still unborn," is the reply. "

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**Who acts:** mothers · **What happens:** curse, be · **To what, where:** children, reply · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, 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 (mothers), 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:pg22373:57:18
# text = "Their mothers cursed them while still unborn," is the reply. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	mothers	mother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	cursed	curse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	nsubj	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	still	still	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	unborn	unborn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **curse** *in a quote* | past | children's mothers | children *= child* |  |  |  | unborn *property* | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **be** *speech: assert* | present |  | the reply |  |  |  |  | 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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