---
title: Time after time they laid their heads together, and at last they agr… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Time after time they laid their heads together, and at last they agreed among themselves that the best thing the old man could do was to go to school. " Who acts: sons, old man, best thing. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 1, sentence 85

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Time after time they laid their heads together, and at last they agreed among themselves that the best thing the old man could do was to go to school. "

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**Who acts:** sons, old man, best thing · **What happens:** lay, agree, do, be · **To what, where:** heads, last, best thing · **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 (sons, old man, best thing), 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:pg29672:22:85
# text = Time after time they laid their heads together, and at last they agreed among themselves that the best thing the old man could do was to go to school. "
1	Time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
2	after	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	together	together	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	obl	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	agreed	agree	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	among	among	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	14	obl	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	20	amod	_	_
20	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj:outer	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	acl:relcl	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
32	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past | sons *= son* | sons's heads |  |  | time | together *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Result |
| 2 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past | sons *= son* |  |  | last |  | among sons *= son* | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | could | the old man | the best thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is** *not said to happen* | past | the best thing |  |  |  |  | to school; go *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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