---
title: Once upon a time there lived a poor knight who had a great many chil… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived a poor knight who had a great many children, and found it very hard to get enough for them to eat. Who acts: poor knight, Coward, children. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 71

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Once upon a time there lived a poor knight who had a great many children, and found it very hard to get enough for them to eat.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** poor knight, Coward, children · **What happens:** live, have, find, get, eat · **To what, where:** poor knight, great many children, Coward, enough

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor knight, Coward, children), 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:pg3282:12:71
# text = Once upon a time there lived a poor knight who had a great many children, and found it very hard to get enough for them to eat.
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	6	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	obj	_	_
25	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
26	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a poor knight |  | there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme knight=Location |
| 2 | **have** | past | a poor knight | a great many children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 3 | **find** | past |  | Coward |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 4 | **get** | to-infinitive | Coward *not said here* | enough |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer enough=Stimulus |
| 5 | **eat** | to-infinitive | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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