---
title: At midnight the princesses went to look whether he was asleep or not. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: At midnight the princesses went to look whether he was asleep or not. Who acts: princesses, nobleman. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 13, sentence 157

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At midnight the princesses went to look whether he was asleep or not.

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**Who acts:** princesses, nobleman · **What happens:** go, look, be

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (princesses, nobleman), 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:pg62509:13:157
# text = At midnight the princesses went to look whether he was asleep or not.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	princesses	princess	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | the princesses |  |  |  | midnight |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **look** | to-infinitive | the princesses *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past | nobleman |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | tree rules |

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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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