---
title: “Spread all sail, that we may fly on the ocean like a bird in the ai… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Spread all sail, that we may fly on the ocean like a bird in the air.” Who acts: you, we. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Trusty John, sentence 54

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“Spread all sail, that we may fly on the ocean like a bird in the air.”

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**Who acts:** you, we · **What happens:** spread, fly · **To what, where:** sail, ocean

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, we), 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:pg503:41:54
# text = “Spread all sail, that we may fly on the ocean like a bird in the air.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Spread	spread	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	4	det	_	_
4	sail	sail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	ocean	ocean	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spread** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* | all sail |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location sail=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** *in a quote* | may | we |  |  | the ocean |  | like a bird; in the air | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent on ocean=Location |

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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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