---
title: There were once a King and a Queen, and they had a son called Sigurd… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There were once a King and a Queen, and they had a son called Sigurd, who was very strong and active, and good-looking. Who acts: King, Sigurd. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/) / 2

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There were once a King and a Queen, and they had a son called Sigurd, who was very strong and active, and good-looking.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** King, Sigurd · **What happens:** be, have, call, look · **To what, where:** son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, Sigurd), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:47:2
# text = There were once a King and a Queen, and they had a son called Sigurd, who was very strong and active, and good-looking.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|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	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	vocative	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	Sigurd	Sigurd	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	acl:relcl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	active	active	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
26	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | King | a son |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 3 | **call** | participle |  | a son *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | Sigurd |  |  |  |  | strong *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | Sigurd *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **look** | gerund | King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/)