---
title: Near a big river, and between two high mountains, a man and his wife… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Near a big river, and between two high mountains, a man and his wife lived in a cottage a long, long time ago. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg5615/4/3/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 3

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Near a big river, and between two high mountains, a man and his wife lived in a cottage a long, long time ago.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** live · **To what, where:** big river

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg5615:4:3
# text = Near a big river, and between two high mountains, a man and his wife lived in a cottage a long, long time ago.
1	Near	near	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	between	between	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
9	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	mountains	mountain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
17	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
22	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
24	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl:unmarked	_	_
26	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | a man and his wife |  |  | a big river and two high mountains |  | in a cottage; ago *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in cottage=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 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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