---
title: Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was pretty and clever, and the other ugly and lazy. Who acts: widow, one. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Mother Holle, part 1, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was pretty and clever, and the other ugly and lazy.

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**Who acts:** widow, one · **What happens:** have, be · **To what, where:** two daughters

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow, one), 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:pg540:44:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them was pretty and clever, and the other ugly and lazy.
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	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nmod	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	conj	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	lazy	lazy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | a widow | two daughters |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past | one of daughters |  |  |  |  | clever, pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | one of daughters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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- ← previous: [Farmer Weatherbeard, 146](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/43/146/)
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