---
title: As often happens in this world, there was once a young man who spent… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As often happens in this world, there was once a young man who spent all his time in travelling. Who acts: young man. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Snuff-box, sentence 1

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As often happens in this world, there was once a young man who spent all his time in travelling.

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**Who acts:** young man · **What happens:** happen, be, spend · **To what, where:** world, travelling

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young man), 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:pg7277:20:1
# text = As often happens in this world, there was once a young man who spent all his time in travelling.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	often	often	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	happens	happen	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	spent	spend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
16	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	18	det:predet	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	travelling	travelling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | present |  |  |  | this world |  | often *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in world=Location |
| 2 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **spend** | past | a young man |  |  | travelling | time |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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