---
title: In the reign of the famous King Edward III. there was a little boy c… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In the reign of the famous King Edward III. there was a little boy called Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young. Who acts: little boy, boy. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Whittington and His Cat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Whittington and His Cat, sentence 1

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In the reign of the famous King Edward III. there was a little boy called Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young.

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**Who acts:** little boy, boy · **What happens:** call, be · **To what, where:** little boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Whittington and His Cat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, boy), 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:pg7439:37:1
# text = In the reign of the famous King Edward III. there was a little boy called Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	reign	reign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	famous	famous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:desc	_	_
8	Edward	Edward	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
9	III	III	NUM	CD	NumForm=Roman|NumType=Card	8	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
16	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl	_	_
17	Dick	Dick	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	xcomp	_	_
18	Whittington	Whittington	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	appos	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	_
24	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
25	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	29	advmod	_	_
26	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	very	very	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | participle |  | a little boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | a little boy |  |  |  |  | die *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | boy |  |  |  |  | young *property* | 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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