---
title: In a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons. — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: In a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 6, sentence 135

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In a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** live, have · **To what, where:** old man, certain country, three sons

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg22373:16:135
# text = In a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	7	advmod	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a old man |  | a certain country |  | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme man=Location |
| 2 | **have** | past | a old man | three sons |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |

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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 Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (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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