---
title: But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for three d… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for three days they sang not one song. Who acts: little birds, birds. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, sentence 137

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But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for three days they sang not one song.

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**Who acts:** little birds, birds · **What happens:** hear, mourn, not sing · **To what, where:** one song

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little birds, birds), 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:pg27200:143:137
# text = But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for three days they sang not one song.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	mourned	mourn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
20	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
21	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | participle | the little birds |  |  |  |  | of smoke | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **mourn** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | past | birds *= bird* | one song |  |  | day |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |

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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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