---
title: ‘Yes; I see a flock of crows coming flying after us,’ said the man. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Yes; I see a flock of crows coming flying after us,’ said the man. Who acts: I, crows, man. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Farmer Weatherbeard, sentence 79

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‘Yes; I see a flock of crows coming flying after us,’ said the man.

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**Who acts:** I, crows, man · **What happens:** see, come, fly, say · **To what, where:** flock · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, crows, man), 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:pg540:43:79
# text = ‘Yes; I see a flock of crows coming flying after us,’ said the man.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
10	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
11	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	xcomp	_	_
12	after	after	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | present | I | a flock of crows |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer flock=Stimulus |
| 2 | **come** | gerund | crows *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fly** | gerund | crows *not said here* |  |  |  | after us |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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