---
title: A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so e… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly that none of his courtiers could follow him. Who acts: king, none. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Six Swans, sentence 1

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A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly that none of his courtiers could follow him.

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**Who acts:** king, none · **What happens:** hunt, follow · **To what, where:** great wood, game, king

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, none), 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:pg640:4:1
# text = A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly that none of his courtiers could follow him.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	5	advmod	_	_
5	hunting	hunt	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	hunted	hunt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	game	game	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	eagerly	eagerly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
19	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	24	nsubj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	courtiers	courtier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
23	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	follow	follow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hunt** | past · progressive | a king |  |  | a great wood |  | once *property* | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent in wood=Location |
| 2 | **hunt** | past | king | the game |  |  |  | eagerly *property* | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent game=Theme |
| 3 | **follow** | could | none | king |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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