---
title: There was once a hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he had nothing in the world of his own. Who acts: working student, student. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 30

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There was once a hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he had nothing in the world of his own.

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**Who acts:** working student, student · **What happens:** be, work, live, have · **To what, where:** attic, nothing, world

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (working student, student), 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:pg5615:2:30
# text = There was once a hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he had nothing in the world of his own.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
5	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	working	work	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	amod	_	_
8	student	student	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	attic	attic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
18	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	17	obj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	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 | a working student |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **work** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **live** | past | a working student |  |  | a attic |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in attic=Location |
| 4 | **have** | past | student | nothing |  | the world |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=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 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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