---
title: They were good, obedient chickens, and when the old hen chicked afte… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were good, obedient chickens, and when the old hen chicked after them, they chirped and ran back to her side. Who acts: sisters, old hen. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/6/13/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Half-chick, sentence 13

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They were good, obedient chickens, and when the old hen chicked after them, they chirped and ran back to her side.

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**Who acts:** sisters, old hen · **What happens:** be, chick, chirp, run back

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sisters, old hen), 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:pg7277:6:13
# text = They were good, obedient chickens, and when the old hen chicked after them, they chirped and ran back to her side.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	obedient	obedient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	chicked	chick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
14	after	after	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	chirped	chirp	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
21	back	back	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **chick** | participle | the old hen |  |  |  | after sisters *= sister* |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **chirp** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **run back** | past | sisters *= sister* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to hen's side *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to side=Result |

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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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