---
title: "I understand the song of that bird very well," said the young sparr… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I understand the song of that bird very well," said the young sparrows. " Who acts: young sparrows, bird. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/124/49/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Neighbouring Families](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/124/) / 49

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, sentence 49

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I understand the song of that bird very well," said the young sparrows. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** young sparrows, bird · **What happens:** understand, say, sing · **To what, where:** song · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young sparrows, bird), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:124:49
# text = "I understand the song of that bird very well," said the young sparrows. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	understand	understand	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** *in a quote* | present | the young sparrows *= sparrow* | the song of that bird |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the young sparrows |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **sing** *in a quote* |  | that bird |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 48](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/124/48/)
- next →: [sentence 50](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/124/50/)
- ↑ back to [The Neighbouring Families](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/124/)