---
title: Long, long ago there was born to a Roman knight and his wife Maja a… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Long, long ago there was born to a Roman knight and his wife Maja a little boy called Virgilius. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Virgilius the Sorcerer, sentence 1

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Long, long ago there was born to a Roman knight and his wife Maja a little boy called Virgilius.

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**What happens:** bear, call · **To what, where:** little boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer. 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:pg641:43:1
# text = Long, long ago there was born to a Roman knight and his wife Maja a little boy called Virgilius.
1	Long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	Roman	roman	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
15	Maja	Maja	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
19	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
20	Virgilius	Virgilius	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past · passive |  |  |  |  |  | to a Roman knight and his wife and a little boy | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S» |
| 2 | **call** | participle |  | a little boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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