---
title: Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who were foolish beyon… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who were foolish beyond all telling, but nevertheless they were vastly fond of one another. Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/14/1/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, Heart of Ice, part 1, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who were foolish beyond all telling, but nevertheless they were vastly fond of one another.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** live, be, tell · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King), 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:pg7277:14:1
# text = Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who were foolish beyond all telling, but nevertheless they were vastly fond of one another.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
2	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
14	beyond	beyond	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	obl	_	_
16	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	nevertheless	nevertheless	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	vastly	vastly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	obl	_	_
26	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	25	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | a King and Queen |  |  |  |  | beyond all; foolish *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | King |  |  |  |  | of one; fond, nevertheless, vastly *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:** «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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- ← previous: [The Three Little Pigs, 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/13/80/)
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