---
title: While the goose was turning on the spit, a beautiful little canary h… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While the goose was turning on the spit, a beautiful little canary hopped on to the sill of the open window. Who acts: goose. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 251

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While the goose was turning on the spit, a beautiful little canary hopped on to the sill of the open window.

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**Who acts:** goose · **What happens:** turn, hop on · **To what, where:** spit, beautiful little canary, sill

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (goose), 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:pg540:40:251
# text = While the goose was turning on the spit, a beautiful little canary hopped on to the sill of the open window.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	goose	goose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	turning	turn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	spit	spit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	canary	canary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
14	hopped	hop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sill	sill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past · progressive | the goose |  |  | the spit |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme on spit=Trajectory |
| 2 | **hop on** | participle |  | a beautiful little canary *not said here* |  | the sill of the open window |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to sill=Destination |

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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 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.

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