---
title: His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. Who acts: flight, plumage, song, bird. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Phoenix Bird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Phoenix Bird, sentence 3

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His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing.

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**Who acts:** flight, plumage, song, bird · **What happens:** be, ravish, sing

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Phoenix Bird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flight, plumage, song, bird), 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:pg27200:144:3
# text = His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	flight	flight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	like	like	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	flashing	flashing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	plumage	plumage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	beauteous	beauteous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	ravishing	ravish	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | bird's flight |  |  |  |  | like the flashing; of light | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | bird's plumage |  |  |  |  | bird's song *obl*; beauteous *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **ravish** | gerund | bird's song *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **sing** |  | bird |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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