---
title: There was once upon a time a fisherman, who lived hard by a palace a… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a fisherman, who lived hard by a palace and fished for the King’s table. Who acts: fisherman. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, sentence 1

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There was once upon a time a fisherman, who lived hard by a palace and fished for the King’s table.

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**Who acts:** fisherman · **What happens:** be, live, fish

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fisherman), 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:pg540:26:1
# text = There was once upon a time a fisherman, who lived hard by a palace and fished for the King’s table.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	fished	fish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a fisherman |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a fisherman |  |  |  |  | by a palace; hard *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by palace=Location |
| 3 | **fish** | past | a fisherman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for the King's table | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for table=Theme |

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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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