---
title: He soon came up to the great bird, who was standing on a stone on th… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He soon came up to the great bird, who was standing on a stone on the edge of the river watching for a nice fat fish. Who acts: heron, great bird, river. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 34, 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/pg5615/34/53/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 34, sentence 53

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He soon came up to the great bird, who was standing on a stone on the edge of the river watching for a nice fat fish.

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**Who acts:** heron, great bird, river · **What happens:** come up, stand, watch · **To what, where:** stone

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heron, great bird, river), 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:pg5615:34:53
# text = He soon came up to the great bird, who was standing on a stone on the edge of the river watching for a nice fat fish.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	acl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	acl	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
25	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
26	fat	fat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
27	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come up** | past | heron |  |  |  |  | to the great bird; soon *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bird=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **stand** | past · progressive | the great bird |  |  | a stone |  | on the edge of the river | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on stone=Location |
| 3 | **watch** | gerund | the river *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for a nice fat fish | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.theme NP.location»: agent=Agent for fish=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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