---
title: "Why should I not weep, seeing the task that the serpent has given m… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why should I not weep, seeing the task that the serpent has given me is impossible?" Who acts: serpent, seeing. 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 117

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Why should I not weep, seeing the task that the serpent has given me is impossible?"

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**Who acts:** serpent, seeing · **What happens:** not weep, see, give, be · **To what, where:** task, serpent · **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, seeing), 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:pg29672:25:117
# text = "Why should I not weep, seeing the task that the serpent has given me is impossible?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	csubj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **weep** *in a quote* | should | the serpent *= serpent* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** *in a quote* | gerund |  | the task |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer task=Stimulus |
| 3 | **give** *in a quote* | present · perfect · passive |  | the serpent | the serpent *= serpent* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient i=Theme |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | seeing |  |  |  |  | impossible *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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