---
title: There was once a priest who lived in the parish of St. Nicholas. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a priest who lived in the parish of St. Nicholas. Who acts: priest. 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 2

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There was once a priest who lived in the parish of St. Nicholas.

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**Who acts:** priest · **What happens:** be, live · **To what, where:** parish

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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 (priest), 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:pg62509:12:2
# text = There was once a priest who lived in the parish of St. Nicholas.
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	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	parish	parish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	St.	St.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod:desc	_	_
13	Nicholas	Nicholas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	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 | a priest |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a priest |  |  | the parish of Nicholas  St. |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in parish=Location |

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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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