---
title: Then he took St Michael down from the niche, dug out his eyes, and b… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he took St Michael down from the niche, dug out his eyes, and began beating him. Who acts: man. 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 23

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Then he took St Michael down from the niche, dug out his eyes, and began beating him.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** take down, dig out, begin, beat · **To what, where:** Michael, niche, eyes, man

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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 (man), 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:pg29672:8:23
# text = Then he took St Michael down from the niche, dug out his eyes, and began beating him.
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	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	St	St	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:desc	_	_
5	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	down	down	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	niche	niche	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	dug	dig	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	beating	beat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	xcomp	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take down** | past | man | Michael  St |  | the niche | then | down *property* | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent michael=Theme |
| 2 | **dig out** | participle | man *not said here* | man's eyes |  |  |  |  | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent eye=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **beat** | gerund | man *not said here* | man |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=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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