---
title: At midnight a gentle west wind shook the tree, and at the same momen… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At midnight a gentle west wind shook the tree, and at the same moment a snow-white swan-like bird sank down gently on his breast. Who acts: gentle west wind, white like bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 1, with its dependency tree and th
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 1, sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At midnight a gentle west wind shook the tree, and at the same moment a snow-white swan-like bird sank down gently on his breast.

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**Who acts:** gentle west wind, white like bird · **What happens:** shake, sink down · **To what, where:** tree, breast

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), 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 (gentle west wind, white like bird), 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:pg640:30:31
# text = At midnight a gentle west wind shook the tree, and at the same moment a snow-white swan-like bird sank down gently on his breast.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	west	west	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
17	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
20	swan	swan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	like	like	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
25	down	down	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	_
26	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	breast	breast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | a gentle west wind | the tree |  |  | midnight |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent tree=Patient |
| 2 | **sink down** | past | a white like bird |  |  | bird's breast | moment | gently *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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 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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