---
title: The oldest fairy tales ever written down were written down in Egypt,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The oldest fairy tales ever written down were written down in Egypt, about Joseph’s time, nearly three thousand five hundred years ago. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Green Fairy Book, sentence 13

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The oldest fairy tales ever written down were written down in Egypt, about Joseph’s time, nearly three thousand five hundred years ago.

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**What happens:** write down · **To what, where:** oldest fairy tales, Egypt

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book. 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:pg7277:1:13
# text = The oldest fairy tales ever written down were written down in Egypt, about Joseph’s time, nearly three thousand five hundred years ago.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	oldest	old	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	amod	_	_
3	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	about	about	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	Joseph	Joseph	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	compound	_	_
21	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	compound	_	_
22	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	compound	_	_
23	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
24	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obl:unmarked	_	_
25	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write down** | participle |  | the oldest fairy tales *not said here* |  |  | ever |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **write down** | past · passive |  | the oldest fairy tales |  | Egypt | time | ago *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in egypt=Destination |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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