---
title: Once upon a time there lived a youth who was never happy unless he w… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived a youth who was never happy unless he was prying into something that other people knew nothing about. Who acts: youth, he, other people. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened, with its dependency tree and the p
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there lived a youth who was never happy unless he was prying into something that other people knew nothing about.

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**Who acts:** youth, he, other people · **What happens:** live, not be, pry, know · **To what, where:** youth, something, nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, he, other people), 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:pg641:34:1
# text = Once upon a time there lived a youth who was never happy unless he was prying into something that other people knew nothing about.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	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	6	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	acl:relcl	_	_
13	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	prying	pry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
17	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obl	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	obj	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
22	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
23	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	22	obj	_	_
24	about	about	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a youth |  | there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme youth=Location |
| 2 | **not** **is** | past | a youth |  |  |  |  | happy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **pry** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · progressive | he |  |  | something |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **know** | past | other people | nothing |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |

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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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