---
title: Once on a time there were three princes, who had a step-sister. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once on a time there were three princes, who had a step-sister. Who acts: three princes. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), sentence 1

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Once on a time there were three princes, who had a step-sister.

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**Who acts:** three princes · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** step sister

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (three princes), 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:pg641:5:1
# text = Once on a time there were three princes, who had a step-sister.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
2	on	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	princes	prince	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | three princes |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | three princes | a step sister |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=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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