---
title: “Could ever such a thing happen? — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Could ever such a thing happen? Who acts: thing. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/8/72/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Russian Folk-Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/) / [Opening, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/8/) / 72

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 8, sentence 72

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Could ever such a thing happen?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** thing · **What happens:** happen

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg62509:8:72
# text = “Could ever such a thing happen?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	7	advmod	_	_
4	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	6	det:predet	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** *in a quote* | could | such thing |  |  |  | ever |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/8/71/)
- next →: [sentence 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/8/73/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/8/)