---
title: It was the little living Nightingale, who, sitting outside on a boug… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the little living Nightingale, who, sitting outside on a bough, had heard the need of her Emperor and had come to sing to him of comfort and hope. Who acts: burst, little living Nightingale. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and th
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/48/163/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 163

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was the little living Nightingale, who, sitting outside on a bough, had heard the need of her Emperor and had come to sing to him of comfort and hope.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** burst, little living Nightingale · **What happens:** be, sit, hear, come, sing, need · **To what, where:** little living Nightingale, bough, need, Emperor

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (burst, little living Nightingale), 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:pg640:48:163
# text = It was the little living Nightingale, who, sitting outside on a bough, had heard the need of her Emperor and had come to sing to him of comfort and hope.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	living	living	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	Nightingale	Nightingale	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
11	outside	outside	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bough	bough	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	parataxis	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	need	need	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	Emperor	Emperor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	to	to	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obl	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	comfort	comfort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	hope	hope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | burst | the little living Nightingale |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | the little living Nightingale |  |  | a bough |  | outside *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on bough=Location |
| 3 | **hear** | past · perfect |  | the need of r's Emperor |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer need=Stimulus |
| 4 | **come** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive |  |  | Emperor |  |  | of comfort and hope | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 6 | **need** |  |  | r's Emperor |  |  |  |  | nom need «state transitive»: of=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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