---
title: One year it happened that they owned a pretty little bull-calf, whic… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One year it happened that they owned a pretty little bull-calf, which they called Peter. Who acts: it, children. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 111

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One year it happened that they owned a pretty little bull-calf, which they called Peter.

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**Who acts:** it, children · **What happens:** happen, own, call · **To what, where:** little bull calf · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, children), 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:pg5615:13:111
# text = One year it happened that they owned a pretty little bull-calf, which they called Peter.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	owned	own	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
9	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
11	bull	bull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	calf	calf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	obj	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
18	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | it |  |  |  | year |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **own** | past | children *= child* | a little bull calf |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot calf=Theme |
| 3 | **call** | past | children *= child* | a little bull calf |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent which=Recipient |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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