---
title: “And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging up… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings. Who acts: you, little bird. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4, 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/pg902/4/15/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 15

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“And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings.

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**Who acts:** you, little bird · **What happens:** do, say, swing, flap · **To what, where:** return, silver spray, tiny wings · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, little bird), 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:pg902:4:15
# text = “And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	return	return	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	swinging	swing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
17	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	silver	silver	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	spray	spray	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	flapping	flap	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
25	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | would | you |  |  | return |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the little bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **swing** | gerund | the little bird *not said here* |  |  | a silver spray |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme upon spray=Trajectory |
| 4 | **flap** | gerund | the little bird *not said here* | bird's tiny wings |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wing=Patient |

<!-- .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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