---
title: Wherever he turned, heads flew: it was like mowing hay. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Wherever he turned, heads flew: it was like mowing hay. Who acts: horse, heads, head. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 28, sentence 115

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Wherever he turned, heads flew: it was like mowing hay.

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**Who acts:** horse, heads, head · **What happens:** turn, fly, mow · **To what, where:** hay

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horse, heads, head), 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:pg62509:28:115
# text = Wherever he turned, heads flew: it was like mowing hay.
1	Wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	like	like	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	mowing	mow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
12	hay	hay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past | horse |  |  |  |  | wherever *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** | past | heads |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **mow** | past · progressive | head | hay |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-2 «NP.instrument V NP»: agent=Instrument hay=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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