---
title: “My brothers set out to marry, but they could find no brides. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “My brothers set out to marry, but they could find no brides. Who acts: brothers. 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 52

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“My brothers set out to marry, but they could find no brides.

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**Who acts:** brothers · **What happens:** set out, marry, find · **To what, where:** brides

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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 (brothers), 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:pg62509:27:52
# text = “My brothers set out to marry, but they could find no brides.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	brides	bride	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set out** *in a quote* | past | My brothers |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **marry** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | My brothers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **find** *in a quote* | could | brothers *= brother* | no brides |  |  |  |  | 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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