---
title: It was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and ye… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature. Who acts: face, golden tuft, king. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Cir
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 1, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature.

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**Who acts:** face, golden tuft, king · **What happens:** be, look, crown · **To what, where:** pretty little bird, miniature

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (face, golden tuft, king), 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:pg976:15:24
# text = It was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	purple	purple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	appos	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	_
25	round	round	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
30	on	on	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
34	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	tuft	tuft	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	38	punct	_	_
37	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	38	nsubj	_	_
38	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	35	acl:relcl	_	_
39	like	like	ADP	IN	_	43	case	_	_
40	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
41	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	's	's	PART	POS	_	41	case	_	_
43	crown	crown	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	obl	_	_
44	in	in	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
45	miniature	miniature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | face | a pretty little bird and yellow legs and face's head |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | past | a golden tuft |  |  |  |  | like a king's crown in miniature | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **crown** |  | a king |  |  | miniature |  |  | nom crown «communication transitive»: poss=agent in=place |

<!-- .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:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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- ← previous: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/15/23/)
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- ↑ back to [Circe's Palace., part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/15/)