---
title: They had three sons, two of them with their wits about them, but the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They had three sons, two of them with their wits about them, but the third a simpleton. Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 2

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They had three sons, two of them with their wits about them, but the third a simpleton.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** have · **To what, where:** three sons

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg540:13:2
# text = They had three sons, two of them with their wits about them, but the third a simpleton.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
4	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	appos	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nmod	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wits	wit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
12	about	about	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	2	parataxis	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	simpleton	simpleton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | King | three sons |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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