---
title: He was too idle to work, and too much of a coward to thieve. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He was too idle to work, and too much of a coward to thieve. Who acts: GIPSY. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 3, sentence 121

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He was too idle to work, and too much of a coward to thieve.

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**Who acts:** GIPSY · **What happens:** be, work, thieve

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (GIPSY), 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:pg62509:3:121
# text = He was too idle to work, and too much of a coward to thieve.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	too	too	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	idle	idle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	too	too	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	coward	coward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	thieve	thieve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | GIPSY |  |  |  |  | a much coward *parataxis*; idle *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** | to-infinitive | GIPSY *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **thieve** | to-infinitive | GIPSY *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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