---
title: They were so poor that they could save nothing at all; all their ear… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were so poor that they could save nothing at all; all their earnings went in bare food, and when that was gone there was nothing left. Who acts: man, earnings. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Straw Ox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Straw Ox, sentence 3

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They were so poor that they could save nothing at all; all their earnings went in bare food, and when that was gone there was nothing left.

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**Who acts:** man, earnings · **What happens:** be, save, go, leave · **To what, where:** nothing, all, bare food, that

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Straw Ox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, earnings), 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:pg29672:14:3
# text = They were so poor that they could save nothing at all; all their earnings went in bare food, and when that was gone there was nothing left.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
9	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	8	obj	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	15	det:predet	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	earnings	earning	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	bare	bare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
23	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux:pass	_	_
25	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	conj	_	_
26	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	25	advmod	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
28	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	27	nsubj	_	_
29	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	28	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | man |  |  |  |  | poor *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **save** | could | man | nothing |  | all |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent nothing=Theme at all=Asset |
| 3 | **go** | past | man's earnings |  |  | bare food |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in food=Location |
| 4 | **go** | past · passive |  | that |  | there |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 5 | **leave** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «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:** «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Project Gutenberg book 29672 (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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