---
title: Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way off, a king who had three sons. Who acts: king. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Water of Life, sentence 1

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Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way off, a king who had three sons.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** bear, reign, have · **To what, where:** you, country, three sons

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg2591:49:1
# text = Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way off, a king who had three sons.
1	Long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	conj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	_
10	reigned	reign	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
18	off	off	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
25	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past · passive |  | you |  |  |  | long *property* | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **reign** | participle |  |  |  | a country; there |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | a king | 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:** «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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