---
title: There was once a worthy old couple who lived on the coast, and suppo… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a worthy old couple who lived on the coast, and supported themselves by fishing. Who acts: worthy old couple. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 51

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There was once a worthy old couple who lived on the coast, and supported themselves by fishing.

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**Who acts:** worthy old couple · **What happens:** be, live, support · **To what, where:** coast, Brauns

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (worthy old couple), 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:pg5615:3:51
# text = There was once a worthy old couple who lived on the coast, and supported themselves by fishing.
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	7	det	_	_
5	worthy	worthy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	coast	coast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	supported	support	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	_
16	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	obj	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	fishing	fishing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	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 worthy old couple |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a worthy old couple |  |  | the coast |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on coast=Location |
| 3 | **support** | participle | a worthy old couple *not said here* | Brauns *= braun* |  |  |  | by fishing | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer themselves=Stimulus |

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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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