---
title: The white grouse laughed, and his laugh was echoed by thousands of k… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The white grouse laughed, and his laugh was echoed by thousands of kind, soft bird voices. Who acts: white grouse, thousands, grouse. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 8, sentence 120

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The white grouse laughed, and his laugh was echoed by thousands of kind, soft bird voices.

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**Who acts:** white grouse, thousands, grouse · **What happens:** laugh, echo · **To what, where:** laugh

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (white grouse, thousands, grouse), 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:pg23661:8:120
# text = The white grouse laughed, and his laugh was echoed by thousands of kind, soft bird voices.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	grouse	grouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	laugh	laugh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	echoed	echo	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
14	kind	kind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	voices	voice	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	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 white grouse |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **echo** | past · passive | thousands of kind soft bird voices | grouse's laugh |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_existence-47.4 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location subject=Theme |
| 3 | **laugh** |  | grouse |  |  |  |  |  | nom laugh «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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