---
title: Once upon a time there were seven brothers, who were orphans, and ha… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there were seven brothers, who were orphans, and had no sister. Who acts: seven brothers. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/21/98/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 98

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Once upon a time there were seven brothers, who were orphans, and had no sister.

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**Who acts:** seven brothers · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** orphans, sister

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (seven brothers), 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:pg5615:21:98
# text = Once upon a time there were seven brothers, who were orphans, and had no sister.
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	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	orphans	orphan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
16	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
17	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | seven brothers and orphans |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | seven brothers and orphans | orphans |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | seven brothers and orphans *not said here* | no sister |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=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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