---
title: Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of the… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. Who acts: widow, one. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Mother Holle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Mother Holle, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy.

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**Who acts:** widow, one · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** two daughters

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Mother Holle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow, one), 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:pg2591:22:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nmod	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	industrious	industrious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	lazy	lazy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a widow |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a widow | two daughters |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | one of daughters |  |  |  |  | beautiful *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | one of daughters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | one of daughters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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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