---
title: And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the small and the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the small and the great; they twitter and they sing as best they may, each bird with his beak. Who acts: you, flakes. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song, with its dependency tree and the
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the small and the great; they twitter and they sing as best they may, each bird with his beak.

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**Who acts:** you, flakes · **What happens:** bury, fly, twitter, sing · **To what, where:** birds, buried town, best

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, flakes), 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:pg27200:11:39
# text = And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the small and the great; they twitter and they sing as best they may, each bird with his beak.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	over	over	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	buried	bury	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	amod	_	_
5	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	fly	fly	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	twitter	twitter	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	sing	sing	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
23	as	as	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	22	obj	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
28	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	29	det	_	_
29	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	_
30	with	with	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bury** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fly** | imperative | you *not said here* | the birds of heaven |  | the buried town |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme over town=Location |
| 3 | **twitter** | present | flakes *= flake* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | present | flakes *= flake* | best |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location good=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «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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