---
title: He opened the lid, and three tiny little birds flew out, and flappin… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He opened the lid, and three tiny little birds flew out, and flapping their wings they asked, Who acts: son, three tiny little birds, birds. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, 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/pg3454/17/25/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 25

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He opened the lid, and three tiny little birds flew out, and flapping their wings they asked,

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**Who acts:** son, three tiny little birds, birds · **What happens:** open, fly out, flap, ask · **To what, where:** lid, wings

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, three tiny little birds, birds), 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:pg3454:17:25
# text = He opened the lid, and three tiny little birds flew out, and flapping their wings they asked,
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	lid	lid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
8	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	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	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | son | the lid |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location lid=Theme |
| 2 | **fly out** | past | three tiny little birds |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **flap** | gerund | son *not said here* | birds's wings |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | birds *= bird* | birds's wings *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent wing=Recipient |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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