---
title: They chased it and chased it, but the fox kept on escaping, and the… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They chased it and chased it, but the fox kept on escaping, and the hounds could not run it down. Who acts: hounds, fox. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Oh: the Tsar of the Forest, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, Oh: the Tsar of the Forest, sentence 97

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They chased it and chased it, but the fox kept on escaping, and the hounds could not run it down.

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**Who acts:** hounds, fox · **What happens:** chase, keep, escape, not run down · **To what, where:** fox

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Oh: the Tsar of the Forest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hounds, fox), 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:pg29672:2:97
# text = They chased it and chased it, but the fox kept on escaping, and the hounds could not run it down.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	chased	chase	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	chased	chase	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
12	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	escaping	escape	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	hounds	hound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	parataxis	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	down	down	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chase** | past | hounds *= hound* | fox |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 2 | **chase** | past | hounds *= hound* *not said here* | fox |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **keep** | participle | the fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **escape** | gerund | the fox *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **run down** | could | the hounds | fox |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

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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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