---
title: Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess;… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. Who acts: prince, princess. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Princess and the Pea, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Princess and the Pea, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess.

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**Who acts:** prince, princess · **What happens:** be, want, marry, have · **To what, where:** princess, real princess

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Princess and the Pea. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, princess), 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:pg27200:150:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess.
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	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	cop	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	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 prince |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **want** | past | a prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **marry** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a prince *not said here* | a princess |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent princess=Patient |
| 4 | **have** | would | princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | to-infinitive | princess *not said here* | a real princess |  |  |  |  | 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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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