---
title: Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a merchant… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a merchant who had been so fortunate in all his undertakings that he was enormously rich. Who acts: merchant, he, his. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a merchant who had been so fortunate in all his undertakings that he was enormously rich.

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**Who acts:** merchant, he, his · **What happens:** live, be, undertake · **To what, where:** merchant, undertakings

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, 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 (merchant, he, his), 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:pg503:14:1
# text = Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a merchant who had been so fortunate in all his undertakings that he was enormously rich.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	15	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	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	off	off	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
20	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	22	cop	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	fortunate	fortunate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	acl:relcl	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	26	det:predet	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	undertakings	undertaking	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	_
27	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
28	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	_
30	enormously	enormously	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a merchant |  | there |  | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme merchant=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past · perfect | a merchant |  |  | his undertakings |  | fortunate *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | he |  |  |  |  | enormously, rich *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **undertake** |  | his *= he* |  |  |  |  |  | nom undertaking «act transitive»: poss=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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- ← previous: [The Tale of a Youth Who Set…, 231](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/13/231/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/2/)
- ↑ back to [Beauty and the Beast, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/)