---
title: "I'll pluck them," piped the young sparrow, who had no feathers yet. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I'll pluck them," piped the young sparrow, who had no feathers yet. Who acts: Nothing, young sparrow. 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.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I'll pluck them," piped the young sparrow, who had no feathers yet.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Nothing, young sparrow · **What happens:** pluck, pipe, have · **To what, where:** birds, young sparrow, feathers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Nothing, young sparrow), 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:pg27200:124:57
# text = "I'll pluck them," piped the young sparrow, who had no feathers yet.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	pluck	pluck	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	parataxis	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	piped	pipe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	16	det	_	_
16	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pluck** *in a quote* | future | Nothing | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 2 | **pipe** | past |  | the young sparrow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | the young sparrow | no feathers |  |  | yet |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Patient |

<!-- .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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