---
title: Presently there came flying a bird—such a big one that the light was… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Presently there came flying a bird—such a big one that the light was blotted out by it. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka, 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/pg540/13/87/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Norka](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/13/) / 87

# The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 87

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Presently there came flying a bird—such a big one that the light was blotted out by it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** come, fly, blot out · **To what, where:** bird, light

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg540:13:87
# text = Presently there came flying a bird—such a big one that the light was blotted out by it.
1	Presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	11	det:predet	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	blotted	blot	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl:relcl	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  |  | there |  | presently *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **fly** | gerund |  | a bird |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bird=Theme |
| 3 | **blot out** | past · passive |  | the light |  |  |  | by tree | 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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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 86](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/13/86/)
- next →: [sentence 88](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/13/88/)
- ↑ back to [The Norka](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/13/)