---
title: Then the father gave the flute to his brothers to play upon, but the… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the father gave the flute to his brothers to play upon, but they wouldn't. " Who acts: father. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Three Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/18/36/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/) / [The Three Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/18/) / 36

# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Three Brothers, sentence 36

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the father gave the flute to his brothers to play upon, but they wouldn't. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** give, play · **To what, where:** flute

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Three Brothers. 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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg29672:18:36
# text = Then the father gave the flute to his brothers to play upon, but they wouldn't. "
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	flute	flute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
12	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | the father | the flute |  |  | then | to father's brothers | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent would=Recipient flute=Theme |
| 2 | **play** | to-infinitive | the father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/18/35/)
- next →: [sentence 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/18/37/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/18/)