---
title: But the song soon became weaker and weaker, the bird's head drooped,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the song soon became weaker and weaker, the bird's head drooped, and he sunk slowly down, and lay dead at their feet. Who acts: song, head. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the song soon became weaker and weaker, the bird's head drooped, and he sunk slowly down, and lay dead at their feet.

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**Who acts:** song, head · **What happens:** become, droop, sink, lay · **To what, where:** feet

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (song, head), 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:pg27200:197:17
# text = But the song soon became weaker and weaker, the bird's head drooped, and he sunk slowly down, and lay dead at their feet.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
5	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	weaker	weak	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	xcomp	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	weaker	weak	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	drooped	droop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sunk	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
19	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	down	down	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
24	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	xcomp	_	_
25	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **become** | past | the song |  |  |  |  | soon, weak *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **droop** | past | the bird's head |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sink** | past | song |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **lay** | infinitive | song *not said here* |  |  | heads's feet |  | dead *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent at foot=Destination |

<!-- .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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