---
title: And the birds were not shy, but let the girls take them in their han… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And the birds were not shy, but let the girls take them in their hands, and stroke their gold and silver feathers. Who acts: birds, girls. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 33

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And the birds were not shy, but let the girls take them in their hands, and stroke their gold and silver feathers.

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**Who acts:** birds, girls · **What happens:** not be, let, take, stroke · **To what, where:** birds, hands, gold

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, girls), 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:pg641:2:33
# text = And the birds were not shy, but let the girls take them in their hands, and stroke their gold and silver feathers.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	take	take	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	stroke	stroke	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | the birds |  |  |  |  | shy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **take** | present | the girls | birds *= bird* |  | birds's hands |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent they=Value in hand=Location |
| 4 | **stroke** | present | the girls *not said here* | birds's gold and silver feathers |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gold=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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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