---
title: There was once upon a time a couple of poor folks who lived in a wre… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a couple of poor folks who lived in a wretched hut, far away from everyone else, in a wood. Who acts: poor folks. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Seven Foals, sentence 1

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There was once upon a time a couple of poor folks who lived in a wretched hut, far away from everyone else, in a wood.

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**Who acts:** poor folks · **What happens:** be, live · **To what, where:** wretched hut

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor folks), 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:pg540:49:1
# text = There was once upon a time a couple of poor folks who lived in a wretched hut, far away from everyone else, in a wood.
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	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:unmarked	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	folks	folk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	20	advmod	_	_
20	away	away	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	everyone	everyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	20	obl	_	_
23	else	else	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	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 |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | poor folks |  |  | a wretched hut |  | in a wood; away *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in hut=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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