---
title: Why, it tumbles down if you look at it!” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, it tumbles down if you look at it!” Who acts: nag, you. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 40

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Why, it tumbles down if you look at it!”

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**Who acts:** nag, you · **What happens:** tumble down, look

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nag, you), 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:pg62509:5:41
# text = Why, it tumbles down if you look at it!”
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	tumbles	tumble	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	down	down	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tumble down** | present | nag |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **look** | present | you |  |  |  |  | at nag | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |

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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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