---
title: Hold the serpent tight with your legs while I thrust a dry stick int… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Hold the serpent tight with your legs while I thrust a dry stick into the spring, and then we shall see whether it really is healing water." Who acts: you, I, we, stick. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragma
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Hold the serpent tight with your legs while I thrust a dry stick into the spring, and then we shall see whether it really is healing water."

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**Who acts:** you, I, we, stick · **What happens:** hold, thrust, see, heal · **To what, where:** serpent, dry stick, water · **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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I, we, stick), 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:pg29672:27:42
# text = Hold the serpent tight with your legs while I thrust a dry stick into the spring, and then we shall see whether it really is healing water."
1	Hold	hold	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	tight	tight	ADV	RB	_	1	advmod	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	_
8	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	thrust	thrust	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	22	advmod	_	_
20	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	_
23	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	really	really	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
26	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	healing	heal	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	ccomp	_	_
28	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | imperative | you *not said here* | the serpent |  |  |  | with your legs; tight *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent serpent=Theme |
| 2 | **thrust** | past | I | a dry stick |  |  | spring |  | vn carry-11.4-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | shall | we |  |  |  | then |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **heal** | present · progressive | stick | water |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent water=Patient |

<!-- .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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