---
title: But if you fail, your head shall roll off your shoulders.” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But if you fail, your head shall roll off your shoulders.” Who acts: you, head. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 30, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 30, sentence 26

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But if you fail, your head shall roll off your shoulders.”

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**Who acts:** you, head · **What happens:** fail, roll off · **To what, where:** shoulders

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, 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:pg62509:30:26
# text = But if you fail, your head shall roll off your shoulders.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	fail	fail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	roll	roll	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	off	off	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	shoulders	shoulder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **roll off** | shall | your head | your shoulders |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shoulder=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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