---
title: It was spring, and there among the flowers was a white bird; and it… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was spring, and there among the flowers was a white bird; and it sang, and sang, and sang like an angel out of heaven. Who acts: tree, white bird. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree, 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/pg7439/8/32/)

<!-- 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 Rose-tree](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/8/) / 32

# English Fairy Tales, The Rose-tree, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was spring, and there among the flowers was a white bird; and it sang, and sang, and sang like an angel out of heaven.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** tree, white bird · **What happens:** be, sing · **To what, where:** spring, flowers

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

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg7439:271`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:8:32
# text = It was spring, and there among the flowers was a white bird; and it sang, and sang, and sang like an angel out of heaven.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
7	among	among	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
10	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
24	like	like	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	angel	angel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
27	out	out	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	fixed	_	_
29	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | tree | spring |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | a white bird |  |  | the flowers; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among flower=Location |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | tree |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | tree *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | tree *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like a angel out heaven | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/8/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/8/33/)
- ↑ back to [The Rose-tree](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/8/)