---
title: He heard a thrush say to a magpie: “How stupid men are! they cannot… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He heard a thrush say to a magpie: “How stupid men are! they cannot understand the simplest thing. Who acts: prince, thrush, stupid men. 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/pg503/26/83/)

<!-- 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/) / 83

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He heard a thrush say to a magpie: “How stupid men are! they cannot understand the simplest thing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, thrush, stupid men · **What happens:** hear, say, not be · **To what, where:** magpie · **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, thrush, stupid men), 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:pg503:26:83
# text = He heard a thrush say to a magpie: “How stupid men are! they cannot understand the simplest thing.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	thrush	thrush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	magpie	magpie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
12	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	simplest	simple	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	22	amod	_	_
22	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | a thrush |  | a magpie |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to magpie=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | can · present | stupid men |  |  |  |  | understand *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.

<!-- 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 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/82/)
- next →: [sentence 84](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/84/)
- ↑ back to [The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/26/)