---
title: Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving him wi… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving him with two children--twins--a boy and a girl. Who acts: peasant, wife. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch (28), sentence 2

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Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving him with two children--twins--a boy and a girl.

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**Who acts:** peasant, wife · **What happens:** be, die, leave · **To what, where:** peasant

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (peasant, 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:pg640:39:2
# text = Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving him with two children--twins--a boy and a girl.
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	was	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	peasant	peasant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	leaving	leave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	twins	twin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	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 peasant |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **die** | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **leave** | gerund | wife *not said here* |  | peasant |  |  | with two children and twins and a boy and a girl | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP-Fulfilling PP.theme»: agent=Agent he=Recipient with child=Theme |

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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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