---
title: It was the only tune she knew, but that she could play with one fing… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the only tune she knew, but that she could play with one finger. Who acts: tune, bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd, 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/pg640/43/45/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Swineherd, sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was the only tune she knew, but that she could play with one finger.

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**Who acts:** tune, bird · **What happens:** be, know, play · **To what, where:** only tune

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tune, 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:pg640:43:45
# text = It was the only tune she knew, but that she could play with one finger.
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	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	tune	tune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | tune | the only tune |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | past | bird | the only tune *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer tune=Stimulus |
| 3 | **play** | could | bird |  |  |  |  | with one finger | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent with finger=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 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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