---
title: There was once a king and queen who had a little boy, and they calle… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a king and queen who had a little boy, and they called his name Kilweh. Who acts: king, queen, boy. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, sentence 15

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There was once a king and queen who had a little boy, and they called his name Kilweh.

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**Who acts:** king, queen, boy · **What happens:** be, have, call, name · **To what, where:** little boy, name · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, queen, boy), 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:pg3454:38:15
# text = There was once a king and queen who had a little boy, and they called his name Kilweh.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	Kilweh	Kilweh	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a king and queen |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | queen | a little boy |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Patient |
| 3 | **call** | past | king | boy's name |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent name=Recipient |
| 4 | **name** |  | boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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