---
title: But while they were tearing the serpent to pieces the wicked sister… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But while they were tearing the serpent to pieces the wicked sister knocked out his tooth and hid it. Who acts: pieces, wicked sister. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, part 3, 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/pg29672/6/49/)

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Voices At the Window, part 3, sentence 49

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But while they were tearing the serpent to pieces the wicked sister knocked out his tooth and hid it.

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**Who acts:** pieces, wicked sister · **What happens:** tear, knock out, hide · **To what, where:** serpent, tooth

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Voices At the Window, 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 (pieces, wicked 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:pg29672:6:49
# text = But while they were tearing the serpent to pieces the wicked sister knocked out his tooth and hid it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
2	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	tearing	tear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	wicked	wicked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
13	knocked	knock	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	tooth	tooth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	hid	hide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tear** | past · progressive | pieces *= piece* | the serpent |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent serpent=Patient piece=Result |
| 2 | **knock out** | participle | the wicked sister *not said here* | serpent's tooth |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent tooth=Patient |
| 3 | **hide** | past |  | tooth |  |  |  |  | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

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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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