---
title: And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them as fast as… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them as fast as he could. Who acts: bird. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 109

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And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them as fast as he could.

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**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** fly, swim

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird), 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:pg3027:9:109
# text = And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them as fast as he could.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
3	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	after	after	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	10	advmod	_	_
15	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | gerund | bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **swim** | past | bird |  |  |  | after syringas *= syringa* | fast *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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