---
title: And his sister said to him, "Tell me, why dost thou keep these big d… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And his sister said to him, "Tell me, why dost thou keep these big dogs? Who acts: sister. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Voices At the Window, part 2, sentence 80

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And his sister said to him, "Tell me, why dost thou keep these big dogs?

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**Who acts:** sister · **What happens:** say, tell, do, keep · **To what, where:** serpent, sister, thou, big dogs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sister), 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:pg29672:5:80
# text = And his sister said to him, "Tell me, why dost thou keep these big dogs?
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
13	dost	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	13	obj	_	_
15	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
17	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | serpent's sister |  | serpent |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | serpent's sister *= sister* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | present |  | thou |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **keep** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | this big dogs |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dog=Theme |

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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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