---
title: ‘Don’t be afraid, little girls,’ he said smiling kindly at them; he… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t be afraid, little girls,’ he said smiling kindly at them; he could not laugh properly because his mouth was crooked. Who acts: Lisa, mouth. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/16/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/) / 16

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Don’t be afraid, little girls,’ he said smiling kindly at them; he could not laugh properly because his mouth was crooked.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Lisa, mouth · **What happens:** not be, say, smile, not laugh, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lisa, mouth), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:25:16
# text = ‘Don’t be afraid, little girls,’ he said smiling kindly at them; he could not laugh properly because his mouth was crooked.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	smiling	smile	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
14	kindly	kindly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
22	properly	properly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
27	crooked	crooked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | infinitive · do-support |  |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Lisa |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **smile** | gerund | Lisa *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at girls *= girl*; kindly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **laugh** | could | Lisa |  |  |  |  | properly *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | past | Lisa's mouth |  |  |  |  | crooked *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/17/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/25/)