---
title: The poor little birds lay on the ground flapping and beating their w… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor little birds lay on the ground flapping and beating their wings, and shrieked, ‘We poor helpless children, feed ourselves indeed! Who acts: poor little birds, ground, We. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/34/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 34

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The poor little birds lay on the ground flapping and beating their wings, and shrieked, ‘We poor helpless children, feed ourselves indeed!

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**Who acts:** poor little birds, ground, We · **What happens:** lay, flap, beat, shriek, child, feed · **To what, where:** ground, wings, ourselves

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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 (poor little birds, ground, 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:pg7277:50:34
# text = The poor little birds lay on the ground flapping and beating their wings, and shrieked, ‘We poor helpless children, feed ourselves indeed!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	flapping	flap	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	beating	beat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	shrieked	shriek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
21	helpless	helpless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	feed	feed	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
25	ourselves	ourselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	24	obj	_	_
26	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | present | the poor little birds |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on ground=Destination |
| 2 | **flap** | gerund | the ground *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **beat** | gerund | the ground *not said here* | birds's wings |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location wing=Theme |
| 4 | **shriek** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **child** |  | We |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **feed** | present |  | ourselves |  |  |  | indeed *property* | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ourselves=Recipient |

<!-- .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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