---
title: She looked back at the sparrows and smiled and nodded to them, and f… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She looked back at the sparrows and smiled and nodded to them, and flapping their wings in reply they flew swiftly away. Who acts: woman, wings. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/10/98/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 10, sentence 98

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She looked back at the sparrows and smiled and nodded to them, and flapping their wings in reply they flew swiftly away.

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**Who acts:** woman, wings · **What happens:** look back, smile, nod, flap, fly · **To what, where:** sparrows, wings, reply

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, wings), 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:pg3027:10:98
# text = She looked back at the sparrows and smiled and nodded to them, and flapping their wings in reply they flew swiftly away.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	back	back	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	smiled	smile	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	flapping	flap	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	acl:relcl	_	_
22	swiftly	swiftly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	away	away	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look back** | past | woman |  |  |  |  | at the sparrows | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at sparrow=Theme |
| 2 | **smile** | past | woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **nod** | past | woman *not said here* |  | sparrows *= sparrow* |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to they=Recipient |
| 4 | **flap** | gerund | woman *not said here* | sparrows's wings |  |  |  | in reply | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: agent=Agent wing=Patient in reply=Topic |
| 5 | **fly** | past | wings *= wing* | reply *not said here* |  |  |  | away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location reply=Theme |

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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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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