---
title: Now, potter, were there any geese flying over Russia? — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Now, potter, were there any geese flying over Russia? Who acts: potter, geese. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 22, sentence 135

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Now, potter, were there any geese flying over Russia?

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**Who acts:** potter, geese · **What happens:** be, fly · **To what, where:** Russia

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (potter, geese), 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:pg62509:22:135
# text = Now, potter, were there any geese flying over Russia?
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	potter	potter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	_
7	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	geese	goose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
9	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	Russia	Russia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | potter |  |  | there | now | any geese *nsubj* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** | gerund | any geese *not said here* |  |  | Russia |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over russia=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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