---
title: “Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his arm… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his army roosting around him like hens?” said the stranger. Who acts: king, army, stranger. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn, with its dependency tr
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn, sentence 1

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“Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his army roosting around him like hens?” said the stranger.

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**Who acts:** king, army, stranger · **What happens:** help, laugh, hunker, roost, say · **To what, where:** branch · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, army, stranger), 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:pg2892:78:1
# text = “Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his army roosting around him like hens?” said the stranger.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	ccomp	_	_
5	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	hunkering	hunker	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
16	roosting	roost	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	around	around	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	hens	hen	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
23	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **help** *in a quote* | could |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **laugh** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | at a king and his army | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hunker** *in a quote* | gerund | a king and his army *not said here* |  |  | a branch |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **roost** *in a quote* | gerund | his army *not said here* |  |  |  |  | around him *= he*; like hens | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme around he=Location |
| 5 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the stranger |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (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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