---
title: There was once a man who had three sons, and no other possessions be… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a man who had three sons, and no other possessions beyond the house in which he lived. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, 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/pg5615/8/10/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 10

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There was once a man who had three sons, and no other possessions beyond the house in which he lived.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, have, live · **To what, where:** three sons, house

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8. 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:pg5615:8:10
# text = There was once a man who had three sons, and no other possessions beyond the house in which he lived.
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	5	det	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
13	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	possessions	possession	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
15	beyond	beyond	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obl	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	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 man |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a man | three sons and no other possessions beyond the house |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 3 | **live** | past | man |  |  | the house |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in which=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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