---
title: Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had many children a… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had many children and little to give them in the way either of food or clothing. Who acts: poor husbandman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had many children and little to give them in the way either of food or clothing.

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**Who acts:** poor husbandman · **What happens:** be, have, give · **To what, where:** many children, children, way

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor husbandman), 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:pg503:4:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had many children and little to give them in the way either of food or clothing.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	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	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	husbandman	husbandman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	either	either	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	advmod	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
25	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	clothing	clothing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a poor husbandman |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a poor husbandman | many children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 3 | **give** | to-infinitive | a poor husbandman *not said here* |  | children *= child* | the way of food or clothing |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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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