---
title: There was once a great war, and the King had a great many soldiers,… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a great war, and the King had a great many soldiers, but he gave them so little pay that they could not live upon it. Who acts: great war, King, soldiers. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/1/)

<!-- 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 Dragon and His Grandmother](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/) / 1

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was once a great war, and the King had a great many soldiers, but he gave them so little pay that they could not live upon it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** great war, King, soldiers · **What happens:** be, have, give, not live · **To what, where:** great many soldiers, little pay, soldiers, war

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great war, King, soldiers), 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:pg640:9:1
# text = There was once a great war, and the King had a great many soldiers, but he gave them so little pay that they could not live upon it.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	iobj	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	pay	pay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
24	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
26	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
28	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
29	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a great war |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | the King | a great many soldiers |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent soldier=Patient |
| 3 | **give** | past | King | little pay | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient pay=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **live** | could | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  | war |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon it=Location |

<!-- .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: [The Iron Stove(7), 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/8/101/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon and His Grandmother](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/9/)