---
title: “And I also saw a snake lying between your son and his wife.” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “And I also saw a snake lying between your son and his wife.” Who acts: old man, snake. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 18, sentence 124

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“And I also saw a snake lying between your son and his wife.”

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**Who acts:** old man, snake · **What happens:** see, lie · **To what, where:** snake

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, snake), 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:pg62509:18:124
# text = “And I also saw a snake lying between your son and his wife.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	also	also	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	between	between	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | past | the old man *= man* | a snake |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer snake=Stimulus |
| 2 | **lie** *in a quote* | gerund | a snake *not said here* |  |  |  |  | between your son and son's wife | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent between son=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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