---
title: There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a dea… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Blue Beard, 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/pg503/40/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [Blue Beard](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/40/) / 1

# The Blue Fairy Book, Blue Beard, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, have, embroider, gild, deal · **To what, where:** coaches, fine houses, silver

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Blue Beard. 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:pg503:40:1
# text = There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	both	both	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc:preconj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	deal	deal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	appos	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	plate	plate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	embroidered	embroider	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	amod	_	_
25	furniture	furniture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	coaches	coach	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
29	gilded	gild	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	28	acl	_	_
30	all	all	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	over	over	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
32	with	with	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a man | coaches |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a man | fine houses both town and country and embroidered furniture |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent house=Patient |
| 3 | **embroider** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **gild** | participle |  | coaches *not said here* |  |  |  | with gold; over *property* | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with gold=Theme |
| 5 | **deal** |  |  | silver and gold plate |  |  |  |  | nom deal «act transitive»: of=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: [Prince Darling, 164](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/39/164/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/40/2/)
- ↑ back to [Blue Beard](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/40/)