---
title: Once upon a time there was a family of Jackals, consisting of a Fath… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: Once upon a time there was a family of Jackals, consisting of a Father, Mother, and five young ones. Who acts: family, Jackals. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Jackals and the Tiger., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Folk tales from Tibet, The Jackals and the Tiger., sentence 1

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Once upon a time there was a family of Jackals, consisting of a Father, Mother, and five young ones.

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**Who acts:** family, Jackals · **What happens:** be, consist

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This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Jackals and the Tiger.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (family, Jackals), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75000:14:1
# text = Once upon a time there was a family of Jackals, consisting of a Father, Mother, and five young ones.
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	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Jackals	Jackal	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	consisting	consist	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	acl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Father	Father	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
21	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	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 family of Jackals |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **consist** | gerund | Jackals *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of a Father and Mother and five young ones | 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:** «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, Project Gutenberg book 75000 (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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