---
title: “Why should we not come home? the birds flew down from every quarter… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why should we not come home? the birds flew down from every quarter of the sky and almost clawed out our eyes.” Who acts: we, birds. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 24, sentence 61

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“Why should we not come home? the birds flew down from every quarter of the sky and almost clawed out our eyes.”

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**Who acts:** we, birds · **What happens:** not come, fly down, claw out · **To what, where:** quarter, eyes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, birds), 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:pg62509:24:61
# text = “Why should we not come home? the birds flew down from every quarter of the sky and almost clawed out our eyes.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
7	home	home	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	down	down	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	quarter	quarter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	clawed	claw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
22	out	out	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	_
23	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **come** *in a quote* | should | we |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly down** *in a quote* | past | the birds |  |  | every quarter of the sky |  | down *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **claw out** *in a quote* | participle | the birds *not said here* | our eyes |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |

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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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