---
title: “We shall not do any good—we shall only sully the water.” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “We shall not do any good—we shall only sully the water.” Who acts: We. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 35, sentence 46

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“We shall not do any good—we shall only sully the water.”

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**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** not do, sully · **To what, where:** any, water

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We), 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:pg62509:35:46
# text = “We shall not do any good—we shall only sully the water.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	obj	_	_
7	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	sully	sully	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** *in a quote* | shall | We | any |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent any=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sully** *in a quote* | shall | we | the water |  |  |  |  | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent water=Destination |

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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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