---
title: He himself knew so much about the bird’s ways that if he only got to… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He himself knew so much about the bird’s ways that if he only got to see it he could tell at once what it lacked. Who acts: king, way. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 76

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He himself knew so much about the bird’s ways that if he only got to see it he could tell at once what it lacked.

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**Who acts:** king, way · **What happens:** know, get, see, tell, lack · **To what, where:** much, way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, way), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg5615:1616`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg5615:15:76
# text = He himself knew so much about the bird’s ways that if he only got to see it he could tell at once what it lacked.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	1	nmod:unmarked	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obj	_	_
6	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	ways	way	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	only	only	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	21	obl	_	_
24	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	26	obj	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	lacked	lack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	ccomp	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | king | much |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer much=Stimulus |
| 2 | **get** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | way |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **lack** | past | way |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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