---
title: Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman, and a littl… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman, and a little boy. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Lazy Jack, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Lazy Jack, sentence 34

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Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman, and a little boy.

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** old man

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Lazy Jack. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg7439:34:34
# text = Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman, and a little boy.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
2	upon	upon	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	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | a old man and a little boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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