---
title: ‘Yesterday,’ said the priest, ‘a boy was born in the poorest house i… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Yesterday,’ said the priest, ‘a boy was born in the poorest house in the village. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 15

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‘Yesterday,’ said the priest, ‘a boy was born in the poorest house in the village.

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**What happens:** say, bear · **To what, where:** priest, boy, poorest house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. 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:pg641:4:15
# text = ‘Yesterday,’ said the priest, ‘a boy was born in the poorest house in the village.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	poorest	poor	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	17	amod	_	_
17	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the priest |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent priest=Topic |
| 2 | **bear** | past · passive |  | a boy |  | the poorest house in the village |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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