---
title: Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter and his wife and children. Who acts: Several hundreds. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 65

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Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter and his wife and children.

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**Who acts:** Several hundreds · **What happens:** live · **To what, where:** wood cutter, forest

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Several hundreds), 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:pg3282:21:65
# text = Several hundreds of years ago there lived in a forest a wood-cutter and his wife and children.
1	Several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	cutter	cutter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | Several hundreds of years | a wood cutter and Lapplandische's wife and children |  | a forest; there |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in forest=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:** «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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