---
title: Some stories start off without any preliminary formula, or with a si… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Some stories start off without any preliminary formula, or with a simple "Well, there was once a ----". Who acts: stories. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/34/38/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 20, sentence 38

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Some stories start off without any preliminary formula, or with a simple "Well, there was once a ----".

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**Who acts:** stories · **What happens:** start off, be · **To what, where:** simple ---- · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stories), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14241:34:38
# text = Some stories start off without any preliminary formula, or with a simple "Well, there was once a ----".
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	2	det	_	_
2	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	start	start	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	without	without	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
7	preliminary	preliminary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	formula	formula	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	18	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
17	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	18	expl	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
19	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	21	advmod	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	----	----	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start off** | present | some stories |  |  |  |  | without any preliminary formula | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | a simple ---- |  |  |  | once *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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