---
title: As to his voice I can say nothing about that, for the bird never san… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As to his voice I can say nothing about that, for the bird never sang at all. Who acts: I, bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, 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/pg640/11/42/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Donkey Cabbage, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/11/) / 42

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As to his voice I can say nothing about that, for the bird never sang at all.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, bird · **What happens:** say, not sing · **To what, where:** nothing, all · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, bird), 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:pg640:11:42
# text = As to his voice I can say nothing about that, for the bird never sang at all.
1	As	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	4	case	_	_
2	to	to	ADP	IN	_	1	fixed	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	obj	_	_
9	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | can | I | nothing |  |  |  | as Saphir's voice; about that | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | past | the bird |  |  | all |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at all=Location |

<!-- .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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/11/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/11/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Donkey Cabbage, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/11/)