---
title: ‘It sounds best in the green wood,’ said the Nightingale; but still,… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It sounds best in the green wood,’ said the Nightingale; but still, she came gladly when she heard that the Emperor wished it. Who acts: Highness, Nightingale, pleasure, Emperor. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘It sounds best in the green wood,’ said the Nightingale; but still, she came gladly when she heard that the Emperor wished it.

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**Who acts:** Highness, Nightingale, pleasure, Emperor · **What happens:** sound, say, come, hear, wish · **To what, where:** green wood, Highness · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Highness, Nightingale, pleasure, 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:pg640:48:77
# text = ‘It sounds best in the green wood,’ said the Nightingale; but still, she came gladly when she heard that the Emperor wished it.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sounds	sound	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	3	advmod	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Nightingale	Nightingale	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	still	still	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
20	gladly	gladly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	23	advmod	_	_
22	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
24	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	Emperor	Emperor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
27	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	ccomp	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sound** | present | Highness |  |  | the green wood |  | well *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in wood=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Nightingale | the green wood *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent wood=Topic |
| 3 | **come** | past | pleasure |  |  |  | still | gladly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **hear** | past | pleasure |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 5 | **wish** | past | the Emperor | Highness |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot it=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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