---
title: There was once upon a time a King who had two sons, and these sons w… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a King who had two sons, and these sons went a-hunting in the forest and there lost themselves. Who acts: time, sons. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 1, sentence 1

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There was once upon a time a King who had two sons, and these sons went a-hunting in the forest and there lost themselves.

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**Who acts:** time, sons · **What happens:** be, have, go, lose · **To what, where:** two sons, hunting, forest, sons

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (time, sons), 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:pg29672:22:1
# text = There was once upon a time a King who had two sons, and these sons went a-hunting in the forest and there lost themselves.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	hunting	hunting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	26	expl	_	_
26	lost	lose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
27	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a time | two sons |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 3 | **go** | past | this sons | a hunting |  | the forest |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location hunting=Theme |
| 4 | **lose** | past | this sons *not said here* | sons *= son* |  | there |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent themselves=Eventuality |

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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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- ← previous: [The Origin of the Mole, 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/21/13/)
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- ↑ back to [The Two Princes, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29672/22/)