---
title: Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife who were very unhapp… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife who were very unhappy because they had no children. Who acts: wife, men. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 97

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Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife who were very unhappy because they had no children.

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**Who acts:** wife, men · **What happens:** live, be, have · **To what, where:** man, children

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, men), 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:pg540:41:97
# text = Once upon a time there lived a man and his wife who were very unhappy because they had no children.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	very	very	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	acl:relcl	_	_
16	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	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 | **live** | past |  | a man and RAPUNZEL's wife |  | there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme man=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past | RAPUNZEL's wife |  |  |  |  | unhappy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | men *= man* | no children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=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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