---
title: In the land of Erin there dwelt long ago a widow who had an only son. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In the land of Erin there dwelt long ago a widow who had an only son. Who acts: widow. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 66

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In the land of Erin there dwelt long ago a widow who had an only son.

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**Who acts:** widow · **What happens:** dwell, have · **To what, where:** widow, land, only son

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, 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 (widow), 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:pg3454:1:66
# text = In the land of Erin there dwelt long ago a widow who had an only son.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Erin	Erin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
6	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	dwelt	dwell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
9	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dwell** | past |  | a widow |  | the land of Erin; there |  | ago *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme widow=Location |
| 2 | **have** | past | a widow | a only son |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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