---
title: So saying, she made a bite at the little singing-bird's head, and he… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: So saying, she made a bite at the little singing-bird's head, and he fell dead on the ground. " Who acts: creature, bird. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, 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/pg27200/145/100/)

<!-- 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 Portuguese Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/) / 100

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So saying, she made a bite at the little singing-bird's head, and he fell dead on the ground. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** creature, bird · **What happens:** say, make, fall · **To what, where:** bite, head, ground · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (creature, 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:pg27200:145:100
# text = So saying, she made a bite at the little singing-bird's head, and he fell dead on the ground. "
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
11	singing	singing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	's	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | creature *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **make** | past | creature | a bite |  | the little singing bird's head |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bite=Product |
| 3 | **fall** | past | bird |  |  | the ground |  | dead *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on ground=Location |

<!-- .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 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/99/)
- next →: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/101/)
- ↑ back to [The Portuguese Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/)