---
title: But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, something in the bird went crack. Who acts: artificial bird, Emperor. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/48/135/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 135

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, something in the bird went crack.

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**Who acts:** artificial bird, Emperor · **What happens:** sing, lie, listen, go · **To what, where:** bed, something, note, crack

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (artificial bird, Emperor), 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:pg640:48:135
# text = But one evening, when the artificial bird was singing its best, and the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, something in the bird went crack.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	artificial	artificial	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	csubj	_	_
11	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Emperor	Emperor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
20	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	20	obl	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
28	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	acl:relcl	_	_
29	crack	crack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past · progressive | the artificial bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **lie** | past | the Emperor |  |  | bed |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in bed=Location |
| 3 | **listen** | gerund | the Emperor *not said here* | something | note |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to it=Theme |
| 4 | **go** | past |  | crack |  |  |  | in the bird | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location crack=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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