---
title: And when they were on the way there was a grey wolf sitting on a kno… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And when they were on the way there was a grey wolf sitting on a knoll. Who acts: Apostles, grey wolf. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 15, sentence 130

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And when they were on the way there was a grey wolf sitting on a knoll.

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**Who acts:** Apostles, grey wolf · **What happens:** be, sit · **To what, where:** way, knoll

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Apostles, grey wolf), 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:pg62509:15:130
# text = And when they were on the way there was a grey wolf sitting on a knoll.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
13	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	knoll	knoll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Apostles *= apostle* |  |  | the way |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | a grey wolf *not said here* |  |  | a knoll |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on knoll=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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