---
title: The maidens once more set to work, sewed, laughed, and thought how t… — Russian Folk-Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The maidens once more set to work, sewed, laughed, and thought how they might escape the evil witch. Who acts: maidens, daughter. A sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 9, 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/pg62509/9/44/)

<!-- 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/) / 44

# Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 9, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The maidens once more set to work, sewed, laughed, and thought how they might escape the evil witch.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** maidens, daughter · **What happens:** work, sew, laugh, think, escape · **To what, where:** evil witch · **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 (maidens, daughter), 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:pg62509:9:44
# text = The maidens once more set to work, sewed, laughed, and thought how they might escape the evil witch.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	5	advmod	_	_
4	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
5	set	set	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
9	sewed	sew	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **work** | to-infinitive | the maidens *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sew** | past | the maidens |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **laugh** | past | the maidens *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the maidens *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 5 | **escape** | might | daughter | the evil witch |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme witch=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/43/)
- next →: [sentence 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/45/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/9/)