---
title: They beat him and beat him till he cried for mercy. " — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They beat him and beat him till he cried for mercy. " Who acts: pair, serpent. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3, 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 3, sentence 45

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They beat him and beat him till he cried for mercy. "

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**Who acts:** pair, serpent · **What happens:** beat, cry · **To what, where:** serpent

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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 (pair, serpent), 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:pg29672:27:45
# text = They beat him and beat him till he cried for mercy. "
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	mercy	mercy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | present | pair | serpent |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=Theme |
| 2 | **beat** | past | pair *not said here* | serpent |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | serpent |  |  |  |  | for mercy | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S\_INF»: agent=Agent for mercy=Recipient |

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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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