---
title: “There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and sipped the water.” Who acts: owl. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 39, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 39, sentence 88

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“There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and sipped the water.”

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**Who acts:** owl · **What happens:** be, fly, sit, sip · **To what, where:** garden, well, water

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (owl), 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:pg62509:39:88
# text = “There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and sipped the water.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	across	across	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	over	over	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	well	well	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	sipped	sip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | past | a owl |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** *in a quote* | gerund | a owl *not said here* |  |  | a garden |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across garden=Trajectory |
| 3 | **sit** *in a quote* | past | owl |  |  | a well |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over well=Location |
| 4 | **sip** *in a quote* | past | owl *not said here* | the water |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |

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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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