---
title: Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country g… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature was ever seen. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Red Riding Hood, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Red Riding Hood, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature was ever seen.

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**What happens:** live, see · **To what, where:** little country girl, certain village, prettiest creature

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Red Riding Hood. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg503:9:1
# text = Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature was ever seen.
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	6	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	prettiest	pretty	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	amod	_	_
18	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
20	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	advmod	_	_
21	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a little country girl |  | a certain village; there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme girl=Location |
| 2 | **see** | past · passive |  | the prettiest creature |  |  | ever |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |

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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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