---
title: Once upon a time there was an old king who was so ill that he though… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was an old king who was so ill that he thought to himself, “I am most likely on my death-bed.” Who acts: old king, king. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/41/1/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Trusty John, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was an old king who was so ill that he thought to himself, “I am most likely on my death-bed.”

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**Who acts:** old king, king · **What happens:** be, think · **To what, where:** king, death bed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old king, king), 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:pg503:41:1
# text = Once upon a time there was an old king who was so ill that he thought to himself, “I am most likely on my death-bed.”
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	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	acl:relcl	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
20	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
22	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
23	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	24	advmod	_	_
24	likely	likely	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
26	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
27	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	27	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	29	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a old king |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | a old king |  |  |  |  | ill *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | king |  | king |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | king |  |  | my death bed |  | likely *property* | tree rules |

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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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