---
title: There was no sign of his wife, but a huge serpent was just coiling i… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was no sign of his wife, but a huge serpent was just coiling itself round and round and settling down in the middle of the pillow. Who acts: sign, huge serpent. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Serpent-wife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Serpent-wife, sentence 34

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There was no sign of his wife, but a huge serpent was just coiling itself round and round and settling down in the middle of the pillow.

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**Who acts:** sign, huge serpent · **What happens:** be, coil, settle down, sign · **To what, where:** chamber, middle, wife

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Serpent-wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sign, huge 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:pg29672:9:34
# text = There was no sign of his wife, but a huge serpent was just coiling itself round and round and settling down in the middle of the pillow.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	serpent	serpent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	just	just	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	coiling	coil	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
16	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	obj	_	_
17	round	round	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	round	round	ADV	RB	_	17	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	settling	settle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	conj	_	_
22	down	down	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	pillow	pillow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | no sign of sign's wife |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **coil** | past · progressive | a huge serpent | chamber |  |  |  | round *property* | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent itself=Material |
| 3 | **settle down** | gerund | a huge serpent *not said here* |  |  | the middle of the pillow |  | down *property* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **sign** |  |  | sign's wife |  |  |  |  | nom sign «communication transitive»: of=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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