---
title: There was once upon a time a good man who had two children: a girl b… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once upon a time a good man who had two children: a girl by a first wife, and a boy by the second. Who acts: good man. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Rose-tree, sentence 1

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There was once upon a time a good man who had two children: a girl by a first wife, and a boy by the second.

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**Who acts:** good man · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** boy, two children

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (good man), 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:pg7439:8:1
# text = There was once upon a time a good man who had two children: a girl by a first wife, and a boy by the second.
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	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	20	amod	_	_
20	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
25	by	by	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	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 boy by the second |  | there | time | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a good man and a girl by a first wife | two children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |

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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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