---
title: “What a fine devil!” he thought. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What a fine devil!” he thought. Who acts: DEVIL. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 16, sentence 42

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“What a fine devil!” he thought.

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**Who acts:** DEVIL · **What happens:** think · **To what, where:** fine devil

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg62509:16:42
# text = “What a fine devil!” he thought.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	5	det:predet	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	devil	devil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	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 | DEVIL | what fine devil |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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