---
title: He blew his silver whistle, and the swallow who acted as messenger i… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He blew his silver whistle, and the swallow who acted as messenger in the golden castle flew past. Who acts: number, swallow. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, sentence 61

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He blew his silver whistle, and the swallow who acted as messenger in the golden castle flew past.

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**Who acts:** number, swallow · **What happens:** blow, act, fly, whistle · **To what, where:** silver whistle, golden castle

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (number, swallow), 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:pg640:22:61
# text = He blew his silver whistle, and the swallow who acted as messenger in the golden castle flew past.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	silver	silver	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	whistle	whistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	swallow	swallow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	acted	act	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	messenger	messenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
18	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	past	past	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **blow** | past | number | number's silver whistle |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent whistle=Patient |
| 2 | **act** | past | the swallow |  |  | the golden castle |  | as messenger | vn masquerade-29.6-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent as messenger=Attribute |
| 3 | **fly** | past | the swallow |  |  |  |  | past *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **whistle** |  | number |  |  |  |  |  | nom whistle «event intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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 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.

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