---
title: She vowed she would never tell; but for all her promises, she nevert… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: She vowed she would never tell; but for all her promises, she nevertheless told them at last how her husband had lost his twenty serpent skins. Who acts: mother. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Cat, the Cock, and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Cat, the Cock, and the Fox, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She vowed she would never tell; but for all her promises, she nevertheless told them at last how her husband had lost his twenty serpent skins.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** vow, not tell, tell, lose, promise · **To what, where:** skins, last, husband · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Cat, the Cock, and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), 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:pg29672:20:83
# text = She vowed she would never tell; but for all her promises, she nevertheless told them at last how her husband had lost his twenty serpent skins.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	vowed	vow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	promises	promise	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	nevertheless	nevertheless	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	obl	_	_
20	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	24	advmod	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	ccomp	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
26	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	28	nummod	_	_
27	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	skins	skin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **vow** | past | mother |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | would | mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | mother |  | skins *= skin* | last |  | for mother's promises; nevertheless *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **lose** | past · perfect · passive |  | mother's husband |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **promise** |  | mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom promise «communication transitive»: poss=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.

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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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