---
title: He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers a… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers all ruffled, looking the picture of misery. Who acts: magpie, head, feathers. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/24/74/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 74

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers all ruffled, looking the picture of misery.

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**Who acts:** magpie, head, feathers · **What happens:** sit, droop, ruffle, look · **To what, where:** edge, picture

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (magpie, head, feathers), 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:pg2435:24:74
# text = He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers all ruffled, looking the picture of misery.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	drooping	droop	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	all	all	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	ruffled	ruffle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	misery	misery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | magpie |  |  | the edge of magpie's nest |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on edge=Location |
| 2 | **droop** | gerund | magpie's head |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **ruffle** | past | magpie's feathers |  |  |  |  | all *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **look** | gerund | magpie's feathers *not said here* | the picture of misery |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme picture=Attribute |

<!-- .note -->
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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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