---
title: Soon it became dark, and he took the book and began reading it. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Soon it became dark, and he took the book and began reading it. Who acts: suffering, soldier. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/25/27/)

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 25, sentence 27

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Soon it became dark, and he took the book and began reading it.

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**Who acts:** suffering, soldier · **What happens:** become, take, begin, read · **To what, where:** book

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (suffering, soldier), 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:pg62509:25:27
# text = Soon it became dark, and he took the book and began reading it.
1	Soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	reading	read	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	xcomp	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **become** | past | suffering |  |  |  |  | dark, soon *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **take** | past | soldier | the book |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent book=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **read** | gerund | soldier *not said here* | book |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

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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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