---
title: “At this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly: — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “At this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly: A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15, 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/pg2435/15/78/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 78

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“At this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly:

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**What happens:** grin, cry · **To what, where:** spectre

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg2435:15:78
# text = “At this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly:
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	At	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	spectre	spectre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	grinned	grin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	mockingly	mockingly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grin** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  | this spectre |  | in my face | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in face=Theme |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | mockingly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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