---
title: Thus between his four sons he knew not what to do. — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus between his four sons he knew not what to do. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 1, sentence 74

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Thus between his four sons he knew not what to do.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** not know, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg29672:22:74
# text = Thus between his four sons he knew not what to do.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
2	between	between	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past | man |  |  |  |  | between man's four sons; thus *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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