---
title: But, low as she spoke, the giantess caught the words, and began to l… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But, low as she spoke, the giantess caught the words, and began to laugh. Who acts: queen, giantess. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27, 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/pg3027/27/35/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 27, sentence 35

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But, low as she spoke, the giantess caught the words, and began to laugh.

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**Who acts:** queen, giantess · **What happens:** speak, catch, begin, laugh · **To what, where:** words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (queen, giantess), 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:pg3027:27:35
# text = But, low as she spoke, the giantess caught the words, and began to laugh.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	advcl	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	giantess	giantess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **catch** | past | the giantess | the words |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | the giantess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **laugh** | to-infinitive | the giantess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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