---
title: He asked: “For how many years has he been Tsar?” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked: “For how many years has he been Tsar?” Who acts: Tsar. 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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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 25, sentence 71

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He asked: “For how many years has he been Tsar?”

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**Who acts:** Tsar · **What happens:** ask, have, be · **To what, where:** Tsar · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Tsar), 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:pg62509:25:72
# text = He asked: “For how many years has he been Tsar?”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	For	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
7	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
9	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Tsar |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  | year |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | participle | Tsar | Tsar |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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