---
title: So the old man said to them: “Have mercy, good folk! — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So the old man said to them: “Have mercy, good folk! Who acts: old man. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 21, 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/pg62509/21/81/)

<!-- 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 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/21/) / 81

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 21, sentence 81

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So the old man said to them: “Have mercy, good folk!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** say, have · **To what, where:** bricks, mercy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 21. 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), 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:pg62509:21:81
# text = So the old man said to them: “Have mercy, good folk!
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
11	mercy	mercy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	folk	folk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: express* | past | the old man |  | bricks *= brick* |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to they=Recipient |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | infinitive | the old man *not said here* | mercy and good folk |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mercy=Patient |

<!-- .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 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/21/80/)
- next →: [sentence 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/21/82/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/21/)