---
title: And they sent a little devil-boy to fetch the silver. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And they sent a little devil-boy to fetch the silver. Who acts: ounces. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 12, sentence 170

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And they sent a little devil-boy to fetch the silver.

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**Who acts:** ounces · **What happens:** send, fetch · **To what, where:** little devil boy, silver

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ounces), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg62509:12:170
# text = And they sent a little devil-boy to fetch the silver.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
6	devil	devil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **send** | past | ounces *= ounce* | a little devil boy |  |  |  |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Theme |
| 2 | **fetch** | to-infinitive | ounces *= ounce* *not said here* | the silver |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent silver=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:** «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Project Gutenberg book 62509 (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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