---
title: ‘But where is he to find the Witch-maiden?’ said the first bird. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But where is he to find the Witch-maiden?’ said the first bird. Who acts: Solomon. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon of the North(2), sentence 33

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‘But where is he to find the Witch-maiden?’ said the first bird.

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**Who acts:** Solomon · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** first bird · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Solomon), 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:pg640:5:33
# text = ‘But where is he to find the Witch-maiden?’ said the first bird.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	7	advmod	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	Witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	17	amod	_	_
17	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Solomon |  |  |  |  | find *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the first bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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