---
title: There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Ja… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white. Who acts: poor widow, only son. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and the Beanstalk, 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/pg7439/16/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [Jack and the Beanstalk](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/16/) / 1

# English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** poor widow, only son · **What happens:** be, have, name · **To what, where:** only son, Jack, cow

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and the Beanstalk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor widow, only son), 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:pg7439:16:1
# text = There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white.
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	2	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	named	name	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	named	name	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
22	Milky	milky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past |  |  |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a poor widow | a only son |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |
| 3 | **name** | participle | a only son *not said here* | Jack |  |  |  |  | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent jack=Theme |
| 4 | **name** | participle · passive |  | a cow |  |  |  | white *property* | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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: [Cap O' Rushes, 116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/15/116/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/16/2/)
- ↑ back to [Jack and the Beanstalk](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/16/)