---
title: Well, there was once a very rich gentleman, and he'd three daughters… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, there was once a very rich gentleman, and he'd three daughters, and he thought he'd see how fond they were of him. Who acts: gentleman, daughters. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Cap O' Rushes, 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/pg7439/15/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Cap O' Rushes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/15/) / 1

# English Fairy Tales, Cap O' Rushes, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Well, there was once a very rich gentleman, and he'd three daughters, and he thought he'd see how fond they were of him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** gentleman, daughters · **What happens:** be, see · **To what, where:** fond · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Cap O' Rushes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentleman, daughters), 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:pg7439:15:1
# text = Well, there was once a very rich gentleman, and he'd three daughters, and he thought he'd see how fond they were of him.
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	'd	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	'd	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
23	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	24	advmod	_	_
24	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	obj	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *speech: other* | past | gentleman |  |  |  |  | think *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | would | gentleman | fond |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer fond=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past | daughters *= daughter* |  |  |  |  | of him *= he* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Mouse and Mouser, 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/14/37/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/15/2/)
- ↑ back to [Cap O' Rushes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/15/)