---
title: So he blew his whistle, and when he blew it then all the birds of th… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he blew his whistle, and when he blew it then all the birds of the world began to gather. Who acts: Irishman, birds. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains, 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/pg640/45/125/)

<!-- 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 Blue Mountains](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/) / 125

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 125

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So he blew his whistle, and when he blew it then all the birds of the world began to gather.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Irishman, birds · **What happens:** blow, begin, gather, whistle · **To what, where:** whistle

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Irishman, birds), 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:pg640:45:125
# text = So he blew his whistle, and when he blew it then all the birds of the world began to gather.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	whistle	whistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	_
13	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	15	det:predet	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	gather	gather	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **blow** | past | Irishman | Irishman's whistle |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent whistle=Patient |
| 2 | **blow** | past | Irishman | whistle |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 3 | **begin** | past | all birds of the world |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **gather** | to-infinitive | all birds of the world *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn herd-47.5.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **whistle** |  | Irishman |  |  |  |  |  | nom whistle «event intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 124](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/124/)
- next →: [sentence 126](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/126/)
- ↑ back to [The Blue Mountains](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/45/)