---
title: “She will die, unless we can make her laugh,” one whispered to the o… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “She will die, unless we can make her laugh,” one whispered to the other. Who acts: Kisa, we. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 55

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“She will die, unless we can make her laugh,” one whispered to the other.

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**Who acts:** Kisa, we · **What happens:** die, make, laugh, whisper · **To what, where:** one, Kisa, other · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kisa, we), 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:pg3282:28:55
# text = “She will die, unless we can make her laugh,” one whispered to the other.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	_
15	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	obl	_	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 | **die** *in a quote* | future | Kisa | one |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **make** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | can | we | Kisa |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **laugh** *in a quote* | infinitive | Kisa *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | participle |  |  | the other |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to other=Recipient |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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