---
title: “What on earth was he up to? — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What on earth was he up to? 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 65

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“What on earth was he up to?

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** tale

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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: 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:pg62509:35:65
# text = “What on earth was he up to?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | tale |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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