---
title: His parents were a King and Queen, whose story you will perhaps read… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His parents were a King and Queen, whose story you will perhaps read some day. Who acts: parents, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, sentence 15

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His parents were a King and Queen, whose story you will perhaps read some day.

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**Who acts:** parents, you · **What happens:** be, read · **To what, where:** King, story

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (parents, you), 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:pg7277:11:15
# text = His parents were a King and Queen, whose story you will perhaps read some day.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | thing's parents | a King and Queen |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **read** | future | you | a King and Queen's story *not said here* |  |  | day | perhaps *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent story=Topic |

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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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