---
title: The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children use… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. Who acts: birds, children. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 3, 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/pg902/3/48/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 3, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.

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**Who acts:** birds, children · **What happens:** sit, sing, use, stop, listen · **To what, where:** trees, games, children

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, children), 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:pg902:3:48
# text = The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	games	game	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	in	in	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	22	mark	_	_
20	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	fixed	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the birds |  |  | the trees |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on tree=Location |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | the birds *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sweetly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **use** | past | the children |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **stop** | to-infinitive | the children *not said here* | children's games |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality game=Eventuality |
| 5 | **listen** | to-infinitive | the children *not said here* |  | children *= child* |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to they=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.

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**Text:** «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (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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