---
title: Once upon a time a little boy was born to a king who ruled over a gr… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time a little boy was born to a king who ruled over a great country through which ran a wide river. Who acts: king, great country. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/24/112/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 112

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Once upon a time a little boy was born to a king who ruled over a great country through which ran a wide river.

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**Who acts:** king, great country · **What happens:** bear, rule, run · **To what, where:** little boy, great country, wide river

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, great country), 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:pg3282:24:112
# text = Once upon a time a little boy was born to a king who ruled over a great country through which ran a wide river.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	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	9	obl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	ruled	rule	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	through	through	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past · passive |  | a little boy |  |  | time | to a king; once *property* | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **rule** | past | a king |  |  | a great country |  |  | vn dub-29.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **run** | past | a great country | a wide river |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme river=Trajectory |

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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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