---
title: Then they told the old man about it; but the old man did not want to… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they told the old man about it; but the old man did not want to go to school. Who acts: sons, old 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 87

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Then they told the old man about it; but the old man did not want to go to school.

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**Who acts:** sons, old man · **What happens:** tell, not want, go · **To what, where:** old man, school · **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), 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:pg29672:22:87
# text = Then they told the old man about it; but the old man did not want to go to school.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	about	about	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | the old man |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent man=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **want** | past · do-support | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **go** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* |  |  | school |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to school=Initial\_Location |

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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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