---
title: As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the tr… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the tree and no sign of life in the nest. Who acts: parents, old birds, prince. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg3282/4/86/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 86

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As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the tree and no sign of life in the nest.

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**Who acts:** parents, old birds, prince · **What happens:** fly, see, lie, sign · **To what, where:** prince, tree, life

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (parents, old birds, prince), 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:pg3282:4:86
# text = As they flew nearer, the old birds saw the prince lying under the tree and no sign of life in the nest.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	under	under	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | parents *= parent* |  |  |  |  | near *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | the old birds | the prince |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer prince=Stimulus |
| 3 | **lie** | gerund | the prince *not said here* |  |  | the tree and no sign of life |  | in the nest | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent under tree=Location |
| 4 | **sign** |  |  | life |  |  |  |  | nom sign «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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:** «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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