---
title: But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. Who acts: arrow. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Bird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Golden Bird, sentence 8

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But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away.

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**Who acts:** arrow · **What happens:** do, drop, fly away · **To what, where:** bird, golden feather, tail

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Golden Bird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (arrow), 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:pg2591:2:8
# text = But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	arrow	arrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	8	det	_	_
8	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	22	advmod	_	_
22	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
23	away	away	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | the arrow | the bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **drop** | past | arrow | a golden feather |  | arrow's tail |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent feather=Theme from tail=Destination |
| 3 | **fly away** | past | arrow *not said here* |  |  |  | then | away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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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