---
title: They were all fine, plump little birds, except the youngest, who was… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were all fine, plump little birds, except the youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters. Who acts: chickens, plump little birds. 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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# The Green Fairy Book, The Half-chick, sentence 2

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They were all fine, plump little birds, except the youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters.

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**Who acts:** chickens, plump little birds · **What happens:** be

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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 (chickens, plump little birds), 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:pg7277:6:2
# text = They were all fine, plump little birds, except the youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	plump	plump	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	except	except	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
16	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
17	unlike	unlike	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | chickens *= chicken* |  |  |  |  | all, fine *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | plump little birds and his brothers and sisters |  |  |  |  | unlike his brothers | tree rules |

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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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