---
title: There were once upon a time four brethren, and three of them remaine… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There were once upon a time four brethren, and three of them remained at home, while the fourth went out to seek for work. Who acts: three, fourth. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Tsar and the Angel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/19/132/)

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Tsar and the Angel, sentence 132

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There were once upon a time four brethren, and three of them remained at home, while the fourth went out to seek for work.

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**Who acts:** three, fourth · **What happens:** be, remain, go out, seek · **To what, where:** home

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Tsar and the Angel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (three, fourth), 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:pg29672:19:132
# text = There were once upon a time four brethren, and three of them remained at home, while the fourth went out to seek for work.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	conj	_	_
8	brethren	brethren	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nmod	_	_
14	remained	remain	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	fourth	fourth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
22	out	out	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
25	for	for	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **remain** | participle | three of IVAN |  |  | home |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at home=Location |
| 3 | **go out** | past | the fourth |  |  |  |  | out *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **seek** | to-infinitive | the fourth *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for work | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for work=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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