---
title: ‘There was once an emperor,’ began they, and the third cushion fell… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘There was once an emperor,’ began they, and the third cushion fell down. Who acts: emperor, third cushion. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Boys With the Golden Stars, sentence 130

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‘There was once an emperor,’ began they, and the third cushion fell down.

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**Who acts:** emperor, third cushion · **What happens:** be, begin, fall down · **To what, where:** emperor, empresses

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (emperor, third cushion), 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:pg641:35:130
# text = ‘There was once an emperor,’ began they, and the third cushion fell down.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	advmod	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	15	amod	_	_
15	cushion	cushion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
17	down	down	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | a emperor |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | a emperor | empresses *= empress* |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Eventuality |
| 3 | **fall down** | past | the third cushion |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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