---
title: At midday they saw a beautiful little snow-white bird sitting on a b… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At midday they saw a beautiful little snow-white bird sitting on a branch, which sang so sweetly that they stopped still and listened to it. Who acts: Hansel, beautiful little snow white bird, branch. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree an
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At midday they saw a beautiful little snow-white bird sitting on a branch, which sang so sweetly that they stopped still and listened to it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Hansel, beautiful little snow white bird, branch · **What happens:** see, sit, sing, stop, listen · **To what, where:** beautiful little snow white bird, midday, branch

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hansel, beautiful little snow white bird, branch), 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:pg503:35:69
# text = At midday they saw a beautiful little snow-white bird sitting on a branch, which sang so sweetly that they stopped still and listened to it.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	midday	midday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
6	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
8	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
12	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
24	still	still	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
27	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | Hansel | a beautiful little snow white bird |  | midday |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bird=Stimulus |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | a beautiful little snow white bird *not said here* |  |  | a branch |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on branch=Location |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | a branch |  |  |  |  | sweetly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **stop** | past | Hansel |  |  |  | still |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 5 | **listen** | past | Hansel *not said here* |  | branch |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to it=Theme |

<!-- .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 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.

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