---
title: The parson held on and held on to the pillar with all his might, but… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The parson held on and held on to the pillar with all his might, but it was of no use. Who acts: Devil. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/23/114/)

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 2, sentence 114

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The parson held on and held on to the pillar with all his might, but it was of no use.

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**Who acts:** Devil · **What happens:** hold on, be · **To what, where:** parson

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Devil), 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:pg29672:23:114
# text = The parson held on and held on to the pillar with all his might, but it was of no use.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	parson	parson	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	pillar	pillar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	14	det:predet	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold on** | participle |  | the parson but no use *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hold on** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | to the pillar | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | Devil |  |  |  |  | of no use | tree rules |

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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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