---
title: Was not this a mere dream? — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Was not this a mere dream? Who acts: this. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 17, sentence 35

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Was not this a mere dream?

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**Who acts:** this · **What happens:** not be · **To what, where:** mere dream

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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 (this), 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:pg62509:17:35
# text = Was not this a mere dream?
1	Was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
2	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
3	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	dream	dream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | past | this | a mere dream |  |  |  |  | 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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