---
title: But the serpent said to the prince, "Well, which of my daughters dos… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the serpent said to the prince, "Well, which of my daughters dost thou think the loveliest?" Who acts: serpent, daughters. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 1, sentence 110

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But the serpent said to the prince, "Well, which of my daughters dost thou think the loveliest?"

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**Who acts:** serpent, daughters · **What happens:** say, do, think · **To what, where:** prince, thou · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, 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 (serpent, daughters), 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:pg29672:25:110
# text = But the serpent said to the prince, "Well, which of my daughters dost thou think the loveliest?"
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	16	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	dost	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
17	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	16	obj	_	_
18	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	loveliest	lovely	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the serpent |  | the prince |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to prince=Recipient |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | present | my daughters | thou |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | infinitive | my daughters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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