---
title: And he thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And he thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?” Who acts: understanding, old devil. 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 45

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And he thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?”

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**Who acts:** understanding, old devil · **What happens:** think, say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (understanding, old devil), 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:pg62509:13:45
# text = And he thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	devil	devil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	doing	do	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | understanding |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | understanding *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | my old devil |  |  |  |  | What *obj*; do *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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