---
title: There was once a little boy, whose father and mother, when they were… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a little boy, whose father and mother, when they were dying, left him to the care of a guardian. Who acts: little boy, father, guardian. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Mogarzea and His Son, sentence 1

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There was once a little boy, whose father and mother, when they were dying, left him to the care of a guardian.

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**Who acts:** little boy, father, guardian · **What happens:** be, die, leave, care · **To what, where:** boy, care

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, father, guardian), 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:pg641:44:1
# text = There was once a little boy, whose father and mother, when they were dying, left him to the care of a guardian.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	dying	die	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	guardian	guardian	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a little boy |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **die** | past · progressive | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **leave** | past |  | boy | the care of a guardian |  |  |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Theme to care=Recipient |
| 4 | **care** |  | a guardian |  |  |  |  |  | nom care «act intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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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