---
title: And when its song was finished it flapped its wings and flew on in f… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And when its song was finished it flapped its wings and flew on in front of them. Who acts: song, midday. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 70

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And when its song was finished it flapped its wings and flew on in front of them.

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**Who acts:** song, midday · **What happens:** finish, flap, fly on, sing · **To what, where:** song, wings, front

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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 (song, midday), 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:pg503:35:70
# text = And when its song was finished it flapped its wings and flew on in front of them.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	finished	finish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	flapped	flap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **finish** | past · passive |  | midday's song |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality |
| 2 | **flap** | past | song | midday's wings |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |
| 3 | **fly on** | past | song *not said here* |  |  | front of Hansel |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in front=Location |
| 4 | **sing** |  | midday |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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 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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