---
title: “Oh that's quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh that's quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never made better nests since. Who acts: that, wise owl, owl. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Magpie's Nest, 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/pg7439/42/10/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Magpie's Nest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/42/) / 10

# English Fairy Tales, The Magpie's Nest, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Oh that's quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never made better nests since.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** that, wise owl, owl · **What happens:** be, say, fly, not make · **To what, where:** owls · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Magpie's Nest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, wise owl, owl), 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:pg7439:42:10
# text = “Oh that's quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never made better nests since.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	obvious	obvious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	away	away	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	owls	owl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
24	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	25	amod	_	_
25	nests	nest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	since	since	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | that |  |  |  |  | obvious *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the wise owl |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **fly** | past | owl |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **make** | present · perfect · passive |  | owls |  |  |  | since *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: subject=Beneficiary nest=Product |

<!-- .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 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/42/9/)
- next →: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/42/11/)
- ↑ back to [The Magpie's Nest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/42/)