---
title: After a time they all came to a town where a King reigned whose daug… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After a time they all came to a town where a King reigned whose daughter was so serious and solemn that no one could ever manage to make her laugh. Who acts: girls, King, daughter, one. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics o
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/48/45/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Golden Goose](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/48/) / 45

# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Goose, sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a time they all came to a town where a King reigned whose daughter was so serious and solemn that no one could ever manage to make her laugh.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** girls, King, daughter, one, seven · **What happens:** come, reign, be, manage, make, laugh · **To what, where:** town, seven

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girls, King, daughter, one), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg540:3967`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:48:45
# text = After a time they all came to a town where a King reigned whose daughter was so serious and solemn that no one could ever manage to make her laugh.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	advmod	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	13	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	King	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	reigned	reign	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
14	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	acl:relcl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	solemn	solemn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
22	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	23	det	_	_
23	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
25	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	26	advmod	_	_
26	manage	manage	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	_
30	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	xcomp	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | girls *= girl* |  |  | a town | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to town=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **reign** | past | a King |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | daughter |  |  |  |  | serious *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | daughter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **manage** | could | no one |  |  |  | ever |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **make** | to-infinitive | no one *not said here* | seven |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **laugh** | infinitive | seven *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/48/44/)
- next →: [sentence 46](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/48/46/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Goose](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/48/)