---
title: There were once upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was c… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There were once upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was called Jacob, the second Frederick, and the youngest Peter. Who acts: three brothers. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Magic Swan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/) / 1

# The Green Fairy Book, The Magic Swan, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There were once upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was called Jacob, the second Frederick, and the youngest Peter.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** three brothers · **What happens:** be, call · **To what, where:** three brothers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (three brothers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:23:1
# text = There were once upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was called Jacob, the second Frederick, and the youngest Peter.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	11	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl:relcl	_	_
16	Jacob	Jacob	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	20	amod	_	_
20	Frederick	Frederick	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	25	amod	_	_
25	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | three brothers |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | past · passive |  | three brothers |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The Little Soldier, 341](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/341/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Magic Swan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/23/)