---
title: Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in many lands have… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in many lands have been. Who acts: king. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Kate Crackernuts, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Kate Crackernuts, sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in many lands have been.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** many lands

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Kate Crackernuts. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg7439:43:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in many lands have been.
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	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	lands	land	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	been	be	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a king and a queen |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | present · perfect | a king and a queen *not said here* |  |  | many lands |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in land=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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