---
title: Once upon a time there were a man and his wife who lived in the fore… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there were a man and his wife who lived in the forest, very far from the rest of the tribe. Who acts: man, wife. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dead Wife(20), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dead Wife(20), sentence 2

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Once upon a time there were a man and his wife who lived in the forest, very far from the rest of the tribe.

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**Who acts:** man, wife · **What happens:** be, live · **To what, where:** forest

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dead Wife(20). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, wife), 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:pg640:27:2
# text = Once upon a time there were a man and his wife who lived in the forest, very far from the rest of the tribe.
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=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	22	advmod	_	_
20	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	rest	rest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	tribe	tribe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	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 | a man from the rest of the tribe and his wife |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | his wife |  |  | the forest |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in forest=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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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