---
title: And the bird saw it was no use talking, and went down to the earth a… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And the bird saw it was no use talking, and went down to the earth again. Who acts: bird, earth, use. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/110/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/) / 110

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 110

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And the bird saw it was no use talking, and went down to the earth again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bird, earth, use · **What happens:** see, be, talk, go down · **To what, where:** use · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird, earth, use), 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:pg641:29:110
# text = And the bird saw it was no use talking, and went down to the earth again.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	8	det	_	_
8	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
9	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	down	down	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	again	again	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is a** | past | earth | no use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **talk** | gerund | no use *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **go down** | past | the bird *not said here* |  |  |  | again | to the earth; down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/109/)
- next →: [sentence 111](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/111/)
- ↑ back to [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/)