---
title: Once, say they, the ostriches were a beautiful and glorious race of… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Once, say they, the ostriches were a beautiful and glorious race of birds, with large, strong wings. Who acts: you, ostriches. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Once, say they, the ostriches were a beautiful and glorious race of birds, with large, strong wings.

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**Who acts:** you, ostriches · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** ostriches, beautiful race · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, ostriches), 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:pg27200:88:33
# text = Once, say they, the ostriches were a beautiful and glorious race of birds, with large, strong wings.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ostriches	ostrich	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	glorious	glorious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
13	race	race	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
20	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | ostriches *= ostrich* |  |  |  | once *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent they=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the ostriches | a beautiful race |  |  |  | of birds | tree rules |

<!-- .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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