---
title: “Then,” said the little bird, “I'll moult all my feathers,” so he mo… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Then,” said the little bird, “I'll moult all my feathers,” so he moulted all his pretty feathers. Who acts: little bird, form. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/27/)

<!-- 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/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/) / 27

# English Fairy Tales, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Then,” said the little bird, “I'll moult all my feathers,” so he moulted all his pretty feathers.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little bird, form · **What happens:** say, moult · **To what, where:** feathers, pretty feathers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little bird, form), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7439:19:27
# text = “Then,” said the little bird, “I'll moult all my feathers,” so he moulted all his pretty feathers.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	moult	moult	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
14	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	16	det:predet	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	moulted	moult	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
22	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	25	det:predet	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
24	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little bird |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **moult** *in a quote* | future | the little bird *= bird* | my feathers |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **moult** | past | form | form's pretty feathers |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/28/)
- ↑ back to [Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/19/)