---
title: An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he was stupid, and could learn nothing. Who acts: aged count, Switzerland, count. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Three Languages, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Three Languages, sentence 1

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An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he was stupid, and could learn nothing.

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**Who acts:** aged count, Switzerland, count · **What happens:** live, have, be, learn · **To what, where:** Switzerland, only son, nothing

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Three Languages. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (aged count, Switzerland, count), 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:pg2591:41:1
# text = An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he was stupid, and could learn nothing.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	aged	aged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	count	count	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	5	advmod	_	_
5	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Switzerland	Switzerland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	learn	learn	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	18	parataxis	_	_
23	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | a aged count |  |  | Switzerland |  | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in switzerland=Location |
| 2 | **have** | past | Switzerland | a only son |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | count |  |  |  |  | stupid *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **learn** | could |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |

<!-- .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:** «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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