---
title: “They lived in the white world, and they used to say: ‘How pleasant… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “They lived in the white world, and they used to say: ‘How pleasant it really might be to live in this world! Who acts: men, world. 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 6

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“They lived in the white world, and they used to say: ‘How pleasant it really might be to live in this world!

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**Who acts:** men, world · **What happens:** live, use, say, be · **To what, where:** white world, world · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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: who acts (men, world), 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:pg62509:20:6
# text = “They lived in the white world, and they used to say: ‘How pleasant it really might be to live in this world!
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
17	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	really	really	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	26	det	_	_
26	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** *in a quote* | past | men *= man* |  |  | the white world |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in world=Location |
| 2 | **use** *in a quote* | past | men *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | men *= man* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* | might | world |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **live** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | world *not said here* |  |  | this world |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in world=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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