---
title: “I am going a-wooing, but I cannot find a bride.” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am going a-wooing, but I cannot find a bride.” Who acts: dragon. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 27, sentence 36

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“I am going a-wooing, but I cannot find a bride.”

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**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** go, not find · **To what, where:** wooing, bride

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dragon), 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:pg62509:27:36
# text = “I am going a-wooing, but I cannot find a bride.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	wooing	wooing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bride	bride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the dragon *= dragon* | a wooing |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **find** *in a quote* | can | the dragon *= dragon* | a bride |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bride=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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