---
title: Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee a miller,… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee a miller, who was the hap-pi-est man in England. Who acts: miller. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Miller of the Dee., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Miller of the Dee., sentence 1

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Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee a miller, who was the hap-pi-est man in England.

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**Who acts:** miller · **What happens:** live, be · **To what, where:** miller, banks, est man, England

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Miller of the Dee.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (miller), 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:pg18442:16:1
# text = Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee a miller, who was the hap-pi-est man in England.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
2	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	banks	bank	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	River	River	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	Dee	Dee	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	miller	miller	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
20	hap	hap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	pi	pi	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	est	est	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	_
26	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	England	England	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a miller |  | the banks of the River Dee; there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme miller=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | a miller | the est man |  | England |  |  | 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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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- ← previous: [Other Wise Men of Gotham., 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/15/69/)
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