---
title: They are curious birds; they give one flap with their wings, and the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They are curious birds; they give one flap with their wings, and then on their outstretched pinions soar far away. Who acts: birds, outstretched pinions. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/40/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, sentence 40

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They are curious birds; they give one flap with their wings, and then on their outstretched pinions soar far away.

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**Who acts:** birds, outstretched pinions · **What happens:** be, give, soar · **To what, where:** curious birds, one flap

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, outstretched pinions), 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:pg27200:140:40
# text = They are curious birds; they give one flap with their wings, and then on their outstretched pinions soar far away.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	flap	flap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
15	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	20	advmod	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	outstretched	outstretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	pinions	pinion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
20	soar	soar	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
21	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	22	advmod	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | birds *= bird* | curious birds |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | present | birds *= bird* | one flap |  |  |  | with birds's wings | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flap=Theme |
| 3 | **soar** | present | birds's outstretched pinions |  |  |  | then | away *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .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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