---
title: I'd rather die an old maid, I'd sooner be linked with the devil, tha… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: I'd rather die an old maid, I'd sooner be linked with the devil, than marry that man!" Who acts: I. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 5, 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 5, sentence 72

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I'd rather die an old maid, I'd sooner be linked with the devil, than marry that man!"

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** die, link, marry · **To what, where:** old maid, I, man

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter VI. LEGENDS, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg22373:60:72
# text = I'd rather die an old maid, I'd sooner be linked with the devil, than marry that man!"
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'd	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	'd	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	linked	link	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	devil	devil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
19	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
20	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **die** | would | I | a old maid |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **link** | would · passive |  | I |  |  |  | with the devil; soon *property* | vn mix-22.1-2-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient with devil=Co-Patient |
| 3 | **marry** | infinitive | I *not said here* | that man |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Patient |

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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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