---
title: My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, and I was the third… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, and I was the third of four sons. Who acts: father, I. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter I, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter I, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, and I was the third of four sons.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** father, I · **What happens:** have, be · **To what, where:** small estate, Nottinghamshire, third

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, I), 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:pg503:43:1
# text = My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, and I was the third of four sons.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	estate	estate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	Nottinghamshire	Nottinghamshire	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	third	third	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | My father | a small estate |  | Nottinghamshire |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent estate=Patient |
| 2 | **is a** | past | I | the third |  |  |  | of four sons | 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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