---
title: Long before Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, there reigned… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Long before Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, there reigned in the eastern part of England a king who kept his Court at Colchester. Who acts: king. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Heads of the Well, sentence 1

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Long before Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, there reigned in the eastern part of England a king who kept his Court at Colchester.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** reign, keep · **To what, where:** eastern part, Court, Colchester

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well. 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:pg7439:49:1
# text = Long before Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, there reigned in the eastern part of England a king who kept his Court at Colchester.
1	Long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
2	before	before	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	Arthur	Arthur	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Knights	Knight	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	Round	Round	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	Table	Table	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
12	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
13	reigned	reign	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	eastern	eastern	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	England	England	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	Court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Colchester	Colchester	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reign** | participle |  |  |  | the eastern part of England; there |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **keep** | past | a king | king's Court |  | Colchester |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent court=Theme at colchester=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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