---
title: At last they met a poor little girl in the kitchen who said, “Why, I… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: At last they met a poor little girl in the kitchen who said, “Why, I know the Nightingale, and I have often heard her sing. Who acts: people, kitchen. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/1/126/)

<!-- 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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/) / [Opening, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/1/) / 126

# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 1, sentence 126

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At last they met a poor little girl in the kitchen who said, “Why, I know the Nightingale, and I have often heard her sing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** people, kitchen · **What happens:** meet, say, know, hear · **To what, where:** poor little girl, last, Nightingale, sing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, kitchen), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:1:134
# text = At last they met a poor little girl in the kitchen who said, “Why, I know the Nightingale, and I have often heard her sing.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obl	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Nightingale	Nightingale	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
26	often	often	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	conj	_	_
28	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	sing	sing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | people | a poor little girl |  | last |  | in the kitchen | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent girl=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the kitchen |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **know** *in a quote* | present | the kitchen *= kitchen* | the Nightingale |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer nightingale=Stimulus |
| 4 | **hear** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the kitchen *= kitchen* | girl's sing |  |  |  | often *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sing=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/1/125/)
- next →: [sentence 127](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/1/127/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/1/)