---
title: In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundred years… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundred years ago, a cobbler and his wife. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, sentence 3

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In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundred years ago, a cobbler and his wife.

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**What happens:** live · **To what, where:** couple, large town

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg641:26:3
# text = In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundred years ago, a cobbler and his wife.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Germany	Germany	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
7	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
8	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
11	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	cobbler	cobbler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | some couple of hundred years and a cobbler and Germany's wife |  | a large town in Germany; there |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in town=Location |

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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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