---
title: And when he began to laugh his laughter echoed in the mouth of the c… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And when he began to laugh his laughter echoed in the mouth of the cave till it sounded like the laughter of a whole castleful of giants. Who acts: doubt, laughter. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Kind Little Edmund], 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/pg23661/14/195/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 195

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And when he began to laugh his laughter echoed in the mouth of the cave till it sounded like the laughter of a whole castleful of giants.

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**Who acts:** doubt, laughter · **What happens:** begin, laugh, echo, sound · **To what, where:** laughter, mouth

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Kind Little Edmund\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doubt, laughter), 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:pg23661:14:195
# text = And when he began to laugh his laughter echoed in the mouth of the cave till it sounded like the laughter of a whole castleful of giants.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	echoed	echo	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sounded	sound	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	castleful	castleful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	giants	giant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | doubt |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **laugh** | to-infinitive | doubt *not said here* | doubt's laughter |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent laughter=Theme |
| 3 | **echo** | past |  |  |  | the mouth of the cave |  |  | vn sound\_existence-47.4 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in mouth=Location |
| 4 | **sound** | past | laughter |  |  |  |  | like the laughter of a whole castleful of giants | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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:** «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Project Gutenberg book 23661 (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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