---
title: Only once a year was the artificial bird allowed to sing, and even t… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Only once a year was the artificial bird allowed to sing, and even that was almost too much for it. Who acts: year, artificial bird, that. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 141

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Only once a year was the artificial bird allowed to sing, and even that was almost too much for it.

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**Who acts:** year, artificial bird, that · **What happens:** be, allow, sing · **To what, where:** artificial bird

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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 (year, artificial bird, that), 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:pg640:48:141
# text = Only once a year was the artificial bird allowed to sing, and even that was almost too much for it.
1	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
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	0	root	_	_
9	allowed	allow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
14	even	even	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	too	too	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	appos	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | a year | the artificial bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **allow** | participle |  | the artificial bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Causer clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the artificial bird *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | that |  |  |  |  | for calamity; much *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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