---
title: There was, once upon a time, a man and his wife fagot-makers by trad… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was, once upon a time, a man and his wife fagot-makers by trade, who had several children, all boys. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/) / 1

# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was, once upon a time, a man and his wife fagot-makers by trade, who had several children, all boys.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** several children

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:33:1
# text = There was, once upon a time, a man and his wife fagot-makers by trade, who had several children, all boys.
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	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
5	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
14	fagot	fagot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	makers	maker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	trade	trade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
22	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	26	det	_	_
26	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a man by trade and his wife fagot makers |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a man by trade and his wife fagot makers | several children and all boys |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The Wonderful Sheep, part 3, 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/32/27/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/2/)
- ↑ back to [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/)