---
title: Once upon a time what should happen DID happen; and if it had not ha… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time what should happen DID happen; and if it had not happened this tale would never have been told. Who acts: DID, it. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/1/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 1

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Once upon a time what should happen DID happen; and if it had not happened this tale would never have been told.

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**Who acts:** DID, it · **What happens:** happen, not happen, not tell · **To what, where:** tale · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (DID, it), 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:pg641:19:1
# text = Once upon a time what should happen DID happen; and if it had not happened this tale would never have been told.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	7	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	7	obl	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	nsubj	_	_
6	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	DID	DID	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	parataxis	_	_
17	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
20	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
21	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	aux	_	_
22	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | should |  |  |  |  | time | once *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **happen** | infinitive | DID |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **happen** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | would · perfect · passive |  | this tale |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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- ← previous: [The Envious Neighbour, 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/18/55/)
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