---
title: Then he began to beat them with a stick, but they uttered not a sound. — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he began to beat them with a stick, but they uttered not a sound. Who acts: brother, oxen. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Wind, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Story of the Wind, sentence 189

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Then he began to beat them with a stick, but they uttered not a sound.

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**Who acts:** brother, oxen · **What happens:** begin, beat, not utter · **To what, where:** oxen, sound

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Wind. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brother, oxen), 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:pg29672:3:189
# text = Then he began to beat them with a stick, but they uttered not a sound.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	uttered	utter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | brother |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **beat** | to-infinitive | brother *not said here* | oxen *= ox* |  |  |  | with a stick | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent they=Patient with stick=Instrument |
| 3 | **not** **utter** *speech: other* | past | oxen *= ox* | a sound |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent sound=Topic |

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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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