---
title: What a lovely bird!’ said Tubby, and in stroking its head he touched… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What a lovely bird!’ said Tubby, and in stroking its head he touched a pin that was sticking between its feathers. Who acts: lovely bird, head, pin. 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 283

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
What a lovely bird!’ said Tubby, and in stroking its head he touched a pin that was sticking between its feathers.

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**Who acts:** lovely bird, head, pin · **What happens:** say, stroke, touch, stick · **To what, where:** head, pin, feathers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (lovely bird, head, pin), 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:pg540:40:283
# text = What a lovely bird!’ said Tubby, and in stroking its head he touched a pin that was sticking between its feathers.
1	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	4	det:predet	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	Tubby	Tubby	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	stroking	stroke	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	pin	pin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	sticking	stick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	between	between	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | what lovely bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stroke** | gerund | head *not said here* | Nonsense's head |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Experiencer |
| 3 | **touch** | past | head | a pin |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme pin=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **stick** | past · progressive | a pin |  |  | Nonsense's feathers |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme between feather=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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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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