---
title: Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottag… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack. Who acts: poor widow. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Jack Sells the Cow, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack.

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**Who acts:** poor widow · **What happens:** be, live · **To what, where:** son, little cottage

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor widow), 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:pg540:15:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
18	only	only	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
20	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a poor widow |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a poor widow | son |  | a little cottage |  | with widow | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in cottage=Location |

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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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