---
title: Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen, who had a l… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen, who had a large brood of chickens. Who acts: handsome black Spanish hen. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Half-chick, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen, who had a large brood of chickens.

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**Who acts:** handsome black Spanish hen · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** large brood

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (handsome black Spanish hen), 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:pg7277:6:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen, who had a large brood of chickens.
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	1	obl	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
8	handsome	handsome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
9	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	Spanish	Spanish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	brood	brood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a handsome black Spanish hen |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a handsome black Spanish hen | a large brood of chickens |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brood=Patient |

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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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