---
title: Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a little hut in t… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a little hut in the middle of a forest. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 78

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Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a little hut in the middle of a forest.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** be, live · **To what, where:** little hut

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 13. 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:pg2435:13:78
# text = Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a little hut in the middle of a forest.
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	1	obl	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a old man |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a old man |  |  | a little hut in the middle of a forest |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in hut=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.

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**Text:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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