---
title: They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads cried to him: ‘… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads cried to him: ‘We will remember, and reward you for saving us.’ Who acts: prisoners, stretching, We. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 27

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They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads cried to him: ‘We will remember, and reward you for saving us.’

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**Who acts:** prisoners, stretching, We · **What happens:** flap, stretch up, cry, remember, reward, save · **To what, where:** heads, haste, you, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prisoners, stretching, We), 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:pg7277:50:27
# text = They flapped with joy, and stretching up their heads cried to him: ‘We will remember, and reward you for saving us.’
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	flapped	flap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	stretching	stretch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	csubj	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
11	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	reward	reward	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
24	saving	save	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	advcl	_	_
25	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flap** | past | prisoners *= prisoner* |  |  |  |  | with joy | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stretch up** | gerund |  | prisoners's heads |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | stretching |  | haste |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 4 | **remember** | future | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **reward** | infinitive | We *not said here* |  | you |  |  |  | vn equip-13.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 6 | **save** | gerund | We *not said here* | us |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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