---
title: So he pinched the bird, and the old man cried, ‘Ah! — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he pinched the bird, and the old man cried, ‘Ah! Who acts: man, old man. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/100/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/) / 100

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So he pinched the bird, and the old man cried, ‘Ah!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, old man · **What happens:** pinch, cry · **To what, where:** bird

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, old man), 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:pg5615:22:100
# text = So he pinched the bird, and the old man cried, ‘Ah!
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	pinched	pinch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	11	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pinch** | past | man | the bird |  |  |  |  | vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/99/)
- next →: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/101/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/)