---
title: He was a long time before he _began_ learning, but better late than… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He was a long time before he _began_ learning, but better late than never. Who acts: father. 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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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 2, sentence 43

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He was a long time before he \_began\_ learning, but better late than never.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** be, begin · **To what, where:** long time, learning

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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 (father), 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:pg29672:23:43
# text = He was a long time before he _began_ learning, but better late than never.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	11	punct	_	_
11	learning	learning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	15	advmod	_	_
15	late	late	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
16	than	than	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | father | a long time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | father | learning |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent learning=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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