---
title: There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very clever. — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very clever. Who acts: ten merchants. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 14, sentence 46

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There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very clever.

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**Who acts:** ten merchants · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ten merchants), 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:pg7128:20:46
# text = There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very clever.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	among	among	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	merchants	merchant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	appos	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	very	very	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	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 | the ten merchants |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | clever *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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