---
title: ‘They are here, master,’ said the birds, and so they were, and never… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They are here, master,’ said the birds, and so they were, and never had the young man seen anything so splendid. Who acts: birds, master. 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/pg3454/17/42/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 42

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‘They are here, master,’ said the birds, and so they were, and never had the young man seen anything so splendid.

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**Who acts:** birds, master · **What happens:** be, say, not be, see · **To what, where:** birds · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (birds, master), 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:pg3454:17:42
# text = ‘They are here, master,’ said the birds, and so they were, and never had the young man seen anything so splendid.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
24	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	amod	_	_
25	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	23	conj	_	_
26	so	so	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	splendid	splendid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | here *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | master | the birds |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bird=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | have *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **see** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 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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