---
title: I did my best to keep them, but they would not stay.” — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: I did my best to keep them, but they would not stay.” Who acts: hands. 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 41

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I did my best to keep them, but they would not stay.”

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**Who acts:** hands · **What happens:** keep, not stay · **To what, where:** hands

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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 (hands), 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:pg62509:9:41
# text = I did my best to keep them, but they would not stay.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | to-infinitive | hands *= hand* *not said here* | hands *= hand* |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **stay** | would · past · do-support | hands *= hand* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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