---
title: They heard the dying nightingale sing; it was no false prophet, but… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They heard the dying nightingale sing; it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of fortune. Who acts: mothers, sing. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourteenth Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Fourteenth Evening, sentence 9

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They heard the dying nightingale sing; it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of fortune.

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**Who acts:** mothers, sing · **What happens:** hear, die, be, harbinger · **To what, where:** dying nightingale sing, false prophet, fortune

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourteenth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mothers, sing), 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:pg27200:105:9
# text = They heard the dying nightingale sing; it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of fortune.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	dying	die	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
5	nightingale	nightingale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	sing	sing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	12	det	_	_
11	false	false	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	prophet	prophet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	harbinger	harbinger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	fortune	fortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | mothers *= mother* | the dying nightingale sing |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **die** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **is a** | past | sing | no false prophet |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **harbinger** |  |  | fortune |  |  |  |  | nom harbinger «communication transitive»: of=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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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