---
title: “Praise be to God,” answered the dog, “it is no mere living, it is b… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Praise be to God,” answered the dog, “it is no mere living, it is butter week. Who acts: Praise, God. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/3/80/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Russian Folk-Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/) / [Opening, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/3/) / 80

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 3, sentence 80

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Praise be to God,” answered the dog, “it is no mere living, it is butter week.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Praise, God · **What happens:** be, answer · **To what, where:** dog, mere living, butter week · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Praise, God), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg62509:3:80
# text = “Praise be to God,” answered the dog, “it is no mere living, it is butter week.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Praise	praise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
16	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	living	living	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	week	week	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | infinitive | Praise |  |  |  |  | to God | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | God |  | the dog |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent dog=Eventuality |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Praise | no mere living |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Praise | butter week |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 79](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/3/79/)
- next →: [sentence 81](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/3/81/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/3/)