---
title: It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long, and was lying just where the mole had made his passage. Who acts: passage, neighbor. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, with its dependency tree and t
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long, and was lying just where the mole had made his passage.

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**Who acts:** passage, neighbor · **What happens:** be, not be, lie, make, pass · **To what, where:** perfect bird, mole

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (passage, neighbor), 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:pg27200:79:83
# text = It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long, and was lying just where the mole had made his passage.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	perfect	perfect	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
18	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	_
24	just	just	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
25	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	29	advmod	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	mole	mole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj:pass	_	_
28	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	advcl	_	_
30	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	passage	passage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | passage | a perfect bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** | could · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lie** | past · progressive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **make** | past · perfect · passive |  | the mole |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: subject=Beneficiary passage=Product |
| 5 | **pass** |  | neighbor |  |  |  |  |  | nom passage «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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