---
title: And the youth said to himself, "Why should I not pick up the feather… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And the youth said to himself, "Why should I not pick up the feather when it shines so brightly even from afar?" Who acts: youth, feather. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Vampire and St Michael, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Vampire and St Michael, sentence 147

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And the youth said to himself, "Why should I not pick up the feather when it shines so brightly even from afar?"

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**Who acts:** youth, feather · **What happens:** say, not pick up, shine · **To what, where:** youth, feather, afar · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Vampire and St Michael. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, feather), 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:pg29672:8:147
# text = And the youth said to himself, "Why should I not pick up the feather when it shines so brightly even from afar?"
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	youth	youth	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	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	pick	pick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	shines	shine	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	brightly	brightly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
22	even	even	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
23	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	afar	afar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	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 | the youth |  | youth |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to himself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **pick up** *in a quote* | should | the youth *= youth* | the feather |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Topic |
| 3 | **shine** *in a quote* | present | feather |  |  | afar |  | brightly *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=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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