---
title: The thing only laughed and screeched and mocked, as long as Tom went… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The thing only laughed and screeched and mocked, as long as Tom went on swearing, but so soon as his breath gave out-- Who acts: thing, Tom, breath. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/18/5/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 5

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The thing only laughed and screeched and mocked, as long as Tom went on swearing, but so soon as his breath gave out--

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**Who acts:** thing, Tom, breath · **What happens:** laugh, screech, mock, go, swear, give out

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, 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 (thing, Tom, breath), 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:pg14241:18:5
# text = The thing only laughed and screeched and mocked, as long as Tom went on swearing, but so soon as his breath gave out--
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	screeched	screech	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	mocked	mock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	swearing	swear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	24	advmod	_	_
21	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
25	out	out	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | the thing |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **screech** | past | the thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **mock** | past | the thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **go** | past | Tom |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **swear** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **give out** | past | Tom's breath |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn break\_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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