---
title: Once upon a time an old queen, whose husband had been dead for many… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time an old queen, whose husband had been dead for many years, had a beautiful daughter. Who acts: husband. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Goose-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Goose-girl, sentence 1

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Once upon a time an old queen, whose husband had been dead for many years, had a beautiful daughter.

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**Who acts:** husband · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** beautiful daughter

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Goose-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband), 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:pg503:37:1
# text = Once upon a time an old queen, whose husband had been dead for many years, had a beautiful daughter.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	18	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	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	cop	_	_
13	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	acl:relcl	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · perfect | husband |  |  |  | year | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past |  | a beautiful daughter |  |  |  | once *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=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 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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