---
title: So they got on his back, for the serpent was asleep all the time. — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So they got on his back, for the serpent was asleep all the time. Who acts: gimlet, serpent. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/4/106/)

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Voices At the Window, part 1, sentence 106

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So they got on his back, for the serpent was asleep all the time.

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**Who acts:** gimlet, serpent · **What happens:** get, be · **To what, where:** back

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, 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 (gimlet, 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:pg29672:4:106
# text = So they got on his back, for the serpent was asleep all the time.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	advcl	_	_
13	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	15	det:predet	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | gimlet |  |  | horse's back |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent on back=Source |
| 2 | **is** | past | the serpent |  |  |  | time | asleep *property* | tree rules |

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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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