---
title: A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way o… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, where there were in those days fairies. Who acts: king. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Briar Rose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Briar Rose, sentence 1

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A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, where there were in those days fairies.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** reign, be · **To what, where:** country

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Briar Rose. 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:pg2591:8:1
# text = A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, where there were in those days fairies.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	advmod	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	reigned	reign	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
16	off	off	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	20	advmod	_	_
19	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	20	expl	_	_
20	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	24	det	_	_
23	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	compound	_	_
24	fairies	fairy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reign** | participle | a king and queen |  |  | a country |  | off, once *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  | in that days fairies | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in fairy=Location |

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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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