---
title: “Why, O Lord, are the children tortured?” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why, O Lord, are the children tortured?” A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 20, sentence 1

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“Why, O Lord, are the children tortured?”

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**What happens:** torture · **To what, where:** children

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg62509:20:1
# text = “Why, O Lord, are the children tortured?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	_
5	Lord	Lord	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	tortured	torture	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **torture** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | the children |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |

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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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