---
title: There was once a widow that lived on a small bit of ground, which sh… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a widow that lived on a small bit of ground, which she rented from a farmer. Who acts: widow, small bit. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin, sentence 1

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There was once a widow that lived on a small bit of ground, which she rented from a farmer.

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**Who acts:** widow, small bit · **What happens:** be, live, rent · **To what, where:** small bit

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow, small bit), 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:pg7439:26:1
# text = There was once a widow that lived on a small bit of ground, which she rented from a farmer.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	rented	rent	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
18	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a widow |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **live** | past | a widow |  |  | a small bit of ground |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on bit=Location |
| 3 | **rent** | past | a small bit of ground |  |  |  |  | from a farmer | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent from farmer=Source |

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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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