---
title: He told them what had befallen their sister the year before, and how… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He told them what had befallen their sister the year before, and how he had twice heard a strange song, but yet could see no singer. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/77/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/) / 77

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He told them what had befallen their sister the year before, and how he had twice heard a strange song, but yet could see no singer.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** tell, befall, hear, see · **To what, where:** maidens, sister, strange song, singer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:26:77
# text = He told them what had befallen their sister the year before, and how he had twice heard a strange song, but yet could see no singer.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	befallen	befall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	ccomp	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
11	before	before	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	18	advmod	_	_
18	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
25	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
27	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	28	det	_	_
28	singer	singer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | prince |  | maidens *= maiden* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **befall** | past · perfect · passive |  | maidens's sister |  |  | year | before *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | past · perfect | prince | a strange song |  |  |  | twice *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus |
| 4 | **see** | could | prince *not said here* | no singer |  |  | yet |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer singer=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/78/)
- ↑ back to [The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/)