---
title: Then immediately he understood the language of birds, and he heard t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then immediately he understood the language of birds, and he heard the Woodpeckers say: Who acts: Sigurd, Woodpeckers. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Story of Sigurd, sentence 74

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Then immediately he understood the language of birds, and he heard the Woodpeckers say:

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**Who acts:** Sigurd, Woodpeckers · **What happens:** understand, hear, say · **To what, where:** language · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sigurd, Woodpeckers), 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:pg540:51:74
# text = Then immediately he understood the language of birds, and he heard the Woodpeckers say:
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	immediately	immediately	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Woodpeckers	Woodpecker	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** | past | Sigurd | the language of birds |  |  | then | immediately *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus |
| 2 | **hear** | past | Sigurd |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the Woodpeckers |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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