---
title: ‘Well,’ said the first bird, ‘the spring is not far from here. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well,’ said the first bird, ‘the spring is not far from here. Who acts: spring. 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 37

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‘Well,’ said the first bird, ‘the spring is not far from here.

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**Who acts:** spring · **What happens:** say, not be · **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 (spring), 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:pg640:5:37
# text = ‘Well,’ said the first bird, ‘the spring is not far from here.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	8	amod	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the first bird |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bird=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is** | present | the spring |  |  |  |  | far *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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