---
title: Then with a shudder he saw that they were feet no longer, but bird’s… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then with a shudder he saw that they were feet no longer, but bird’s claws. Who acts: water, feet. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, 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/pg3282/8/104/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 104

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then with a shudder he saw that they were feet no longer, but bird’s claws.

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**Who acts:** water, feet · **What happens:** see, be · **To what, where:** claws, feet

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water, feet), 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:pg3282:8:104
# text = Then with a shudder he saw that they were feet no longer, but bird’s claws.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
2	with	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	shudder	shudder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
11	no	no	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	claws	claw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | water | bird's claws |  |  | then | with a shudder | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is a** | past | feet *= foot* | feet |  |  |  | long *property* | 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:** «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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