---
title: In front of them there was the blue sea and behind them the Bába Yagá. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In front of them there was the blue sea and behind them the Bába Yagá. Who acts: blue sea. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 7, sentence 68

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In front of them there was the blue sea and behind them the Bába Yagá.

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**Who acts:** blue sea · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** front

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (blue sea), 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:pg62509:7:68
# text = In front of them there was the blue sea and behind them the Bába Yagá.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nmod	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	Bába	Bába	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	Yagá	Yagá	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | the blue sea behind directions |  |  | front of directions; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in front=Location |

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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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