---
title: Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a great conqueror, a… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a great conqueror, and reigned over more countries than anyone in the world. Who acts: emperor. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a great conqueror, and reigned over more countries than anyone in the world.

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**Who acts:** emperor · **What happens:** live, be, reign over · **To what, where:** emperor, great conqueror, more countries

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, 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 (emperor), 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:pg641:38:1
# text = Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a great conqueror, and reigned over more countries than anyone in the world.
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	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	conqueror	conqueror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	reigned	reign	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
17	over	over	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	amod	_	_
19	countries	country	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
20	than	than	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a emperor |  | there | time | once *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme emperor=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | a emperor | a great conqueror |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **reign over** | past |  | more countries |  |  |  | than anyone | vn supervision-95.2.2 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent country=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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