---
title: In a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox live… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox lived a man who had a cat that had been a good mouser in its youth, but was now old and half blind. Who acts: fox, man, cat. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Fox and the Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Fox and the Cat, sentence 1

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In a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox lived a man who had a cat that had been a good mouser in its youth, but was now old and half blind.

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**Who acts:** fox, man, cat · **What happens:** live, have, be · **To what, where:** fox, certain forest, man, cat, good mouser, youth

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Fox and the Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, man, cat), 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:pg29672:13:1
# text = In a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox lived a man who had a cat that had been a good mouser in its youth, but was now old and half blind.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	7	advmod	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	near	near	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	28	nsubj	_	_
24	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
25	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	28	cop	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	mouser	mouser	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	acl:relcl	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
33	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
34	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
35	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	36	advmod	_	_
36	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	_
37	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
38	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	39	advmod	_	_
39	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a fox |  | a certain forest |  | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme fox=Location |
| 2 | **live** | past | the fox | a man |  |  |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme man=Location |
| 3 | **have** | past | a man | a cat |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cat=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** | past · perfect | a cat | a good mouser |  | fox's youth |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | now | old *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **be** |  |  |  |  |  |  | half *property* | 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:** «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Project Gutenberg book 29672 (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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