---
title: Just about then there was a great disaster threatening the Tsar. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Just about then there was a great disaster threatening the Tsar. Who acts: great disaster. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/17/128/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Russian Folk-Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/) / [Opening, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/17/) / 128

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 17, sentence 128

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Just about then there was a great disaster threatening the Tsar.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** great disaster · **What happens:** be, threaten · **To what, where:** Tsar

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great disaster), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg62509:17:128
# text = Just about then there was a great disaster threatening the Tsar.
1	Just	just	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	about	about	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
4	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	_
5	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	disaster	disaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
9	threatening	threaten	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a great disaster |  |  | there | then | about *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **threaten** | gerund | a great disaster *not said here* | the Tsar |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus tsar=Experiencer |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 127](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/17/127/)
- next →: [sentence 129](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/17/129/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/17/)