---
title: There was once upon a time a king called Kojata, whose beard was so… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a king called Kojata, whose beard was so long that it reached below his knees. Who acts: king, beard. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2, 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/pg7277/27/8/)

<!-- 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 Biter Bit, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/27/) / 8

# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 2, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was once upon a time a king called Kojata, whose beard was so long that it reached below his knees.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** king, beard · **What happens:** be, call, reach · **To what, where:** king, knees · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, beard), 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:pg7277:27:8
# text = There was once upon a time a king called Kojata, whose beard was so long that it reached below his knees.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|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	16	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
9	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	Kojata	Kojata	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	appos	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
20	below	below	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | participle |  | a king *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | a king |  |  |  | time | long *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **reach** | past | beard |  |  | KING's knees |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/27/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/27/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Biter Bit, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/27/)