---
title: Once on a time there was a boy named Jack, and one morning he starte… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Once on a time there was a boy named Jack, and one morning he started to go and seek his fortune. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune, sentence 1

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Once on a time there was a boy named Jack, and one morning he started to go and seek his fortune.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** be, name, start, go, seek · **To what, where:** Jack, fortune

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg7439:10:1
# text = Once on a time there was a boy named Jack, and one morning he started to go and seek his fortune.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
2	on	on	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	8	det	_	_
8	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	named	name	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	fortune	fortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	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 boy |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **name** | participle | a boy *not said here* | Jack |  |  |  |  | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent jack=Theme |
| 3 | **start** | past | boy |  |  |  | morning |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **go** | to-infinitive | boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **seek** | infinitive | boy *not said here* | boy's fortune |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fortune=Theme |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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