---
title: She sniffed about the house, and said, “Daughter, my sweet daughter,… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: She sniffed about the house, and said, “Daughter, my sweet daughter, my darling, tell me at once, why does it so smell of Russian bones?” Who acts: witch, Daughter, Russian bones. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/39/)

<!-- 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 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/) / 39

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 9, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She sniffed about the house, and said, “Daughter, my sweet daughter, my darling, tell me at once, why does it so smell of Russian bones?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** witch, Daughter, Russian bones · **What happens:** sniff, say, tell, do, smell · **To what, where:** Daughter, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (witch, Daughter, Russian bones), 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:pg62509:9:39
# text = She sniffed about the house, and said, “Daughter, my sweet daughter, my darling, tell me at once, why does it so smell of Russian bones?”
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sniffed	sniff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	darling	darling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	26	advmod	_	_
26	does	do	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	so	so	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	smell	smell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	Russian	Russian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sniff** | past | witch |  |  |  |  | about the house | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent about house=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Daughter and my sweet daughter and my darling |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive | witch *not said here* |  | Daughter and my sweet daughter and my darling *= daughter* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | present | witch *not said here* | house |  |  |  | smell of Russian bones *obj* | tree rules |
| 5 | **smell** *in a quote* |  | Russian bones |  |  |  |  |  | nom smell «cognition intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/40/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/)