---
title: There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they had no child… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they had no children, which was a great grief to them. Who acts: man, children. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25), sentence 3

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There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they had no children, which was a great grief to them.

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**Who acts:** man, children · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** children, great grief, man

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, children), 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:pg640:36:3
# text = There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they had no children, which was a great grief to them.
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	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
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	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
16	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
17	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	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 |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | man | no children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 3 | **is a** | past | no children | a great grief | man |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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