---
title: ‘Your Excellency, it is the bird,’ replied the Scullion, and he plac… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Your Excellency, it is the bird,’ replied the Scullion, and he placed it in his hand. Who acts: meaning, Excellency, Avesnes. 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 281

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‘Your Excellency, it is the bird,’ replied the Scullion, and he placed it in his hand.

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**Who acts:** meaning, Excellency, Avesnes · **What happens:** be, reply, place · **To what, where:** bird, Scullion, meaning, hand

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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 (meaning, Excellency, Avesnes), 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:pg540:40:281
# text = ‘Your Excellency, it is the bird,’ replied the Scullion, and he placed it in his hand.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	Excellency	excellency	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
11	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Scullion	Scullion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | meaning | the bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Your Excellency and the bird | the Scullion |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent scullion=Topic |
| 3 | **place** | past | Avesnes | meaning |  | Avesnes's hand |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme in hand=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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