---
title: He could see nothing but the dolls, which kept singing. — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He could see nothing but the dolls, which kept singing. Who acts: Coo. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 9, sentence 17

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He could see nothing but the dolls, which kept singing.

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**Who acts:** Coo · **What happens:** see, keep, sing · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Coo), 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:pg62509:9:17
# text = He could see nothing but the dolls, which kept singing.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	dolls	doll	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | could | Coo | nothing  the dolls |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **keep** | past |  |  |  |  |  | which *nsubj* | tree rules |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=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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