---
title: Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body. Who acts: wood. 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 3

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Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body.

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**Who acts:** wood · **What happens:** begin, dig up, discover · **To what, where:** knoll, dead body

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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 (wood), 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:pg62509:6:3
# text = Then they began to dig up the knoll and discovered the dead body.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	dig	dig	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	up	up	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	knoll	knoll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	discovered	discover	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | wood |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **dig up** | to-infinitive | wood *not said here* | the knoll |  |  |  |  | vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent knoll=Theme |
| 3 | **discover** | past | wood *not said here* | the dead body |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Topic |

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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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