---
title: It was a white dove, which sat outside the window, and was pecking a… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a white dove, which sat outside the window, and was pecking at it with its beak. Who acts: pane, white dove. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/8/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 8

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It was a white dove, which sat outside the window, and was pecking at it with its beak.

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**Who acts:** pane, white dove · **What happens:** be, sit, peck · **To what, where:** white dove, window

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pane, white dove), 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:pg5615:26:8
# text = It was a white dove, which sat outside the window, and was pecking at it with its beak.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	dove	dove	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	outside	outside	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	pecking	peck	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	beak	beak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | pane | a white dove |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | past | a white dove |  |  | the window |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent outside window=Location |
| 3 | **peck** | past · progressive | a white dove *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with pane's beak; at pane | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent at it=Patient with beak=Instrument |

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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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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