---
title: They all sailed merrily across the sea chattering like a flock of ma… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They all sailed merrily across the sea chattering like a flock of magpies, or singing their favourite songs. Who acts: They, sea, magpies. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 1

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They all sailed merrily across the sea chattering like a flock of magpies, or singing their favourite songs.

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**Who acts:** They, sea, magpies · **What happens:** sail, chatter, sing · **To what, where:** sea, favourite songs

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (They, sea, magpies), 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:pg3282:20:1
# text = They all sailed merrily across the sea chattering like a flock of magpies, or singing their favourite songs.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	sailed	sail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	merrily	merrily	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	across	across	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	chattering	chatter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	magpies	magpie	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	favourite	favourite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sail** | past | They |  |  | the sea |  | merrily *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent across sea=Trajectory |
| 2 | **chatter** | gerund | the sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like a flock of magpies | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | They *not said here* | magpies's favourite songs |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 4 | **sing** |  | magpies *= magpie* |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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