---
title: ‘Ah, ah! you thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah, ah! you thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too. Who acts: you, song, cat, your. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 153

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‘Ah, ah! you thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too.

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**Who acts:** you, song, cat, your, love · **What happens:** think, find, fly, be, catch, scratch out · **To what, where:** lady love, pretty bird, song, eyes

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, song, cat, your), 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:pg540:41:153
# text = ‘Ah, ah! you thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	2	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	flown	fly	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	28	punct	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
28	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
32	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
33	scratch	scratch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	conj	_	_
34	out	out	ADP	RP	_	33	compound:prt	_	_
35	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	36	nmod:poss	_	_
36	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	obj	_	_
37	too	too	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | your lady love |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent love=Topic |
| 3 | **fly** | present · perfect · passive |  | the pretty bird |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | present | love's song |  |  |  |  | dumb *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **catch** | past | the cat | song |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 6 | **scratch out** | future | the cat *not said here* | your eyes |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Theme |
| 7 | **love** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom love «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |
| 8 | **sing** |  | love |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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