---
title: One day Jack happened to be at the town-hall when the magistrates we… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One day Jack happened to be at the town-hall when the magistrates were sitting in council about the Giant. Who acts: Jack, magistrates. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack the Giant-killer, sentence 8

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One day Jack happened to be at the town-hall when the magistrates were sitting in council about the Giant.

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**Who acts:** Jack, magistrates · **What happens:** happen, be, sit · **To what, where:** town hall, council

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jack, magistrates), 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:pg7439:22:8
# text = One day Jack happened to be at the town-hall when the magistrates were sitting in council about the Giant.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	hall	hall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	advcl	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	magistrates	magistrate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	acl:relcl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	council	council	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
19	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | Jack |  |  |  | day |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | to-infinitive | Jack *not said here* |  |  | the town hall |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sit** | past · progressive | the magistrates |  |  | council |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in council=Location |

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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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