---
title: They were seized, bound, locked up in a dark vault at the Tsar’s ple… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were seized, bound, locked up in a dark vault at the Tsar’s pleasure. Who acts: Tsar. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 6, sentence 11

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They were seized, bound, locked up in a dark vault at the Tsar’s pleasure.

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**Who acts:** Tsar · **What happens:** seize, lock up, please · **To what, where:** flames, dark vault

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tsar), 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:pg62509:6:11
# text = They were seized, bound, locked up in a dark vault at the Tsar’s pleasure.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	seized	seize	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	bound	bound	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	locked	lock	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	vault	vault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Tsar	Tsar	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	pleasure	pleasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past · passive |  | flames *= flame* |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **lock up** | participle |  |  |  | a dark vault at the Tsar's pleasure |  |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **please** |  | the Tsar |  |  |  |  |  | nom pleasure «feeling transitive»: poss=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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