---
title: This was the flower that laughs, and no one who looked at it could h… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This was the flower that laughs, and no one who looked at it could help laughing too. Who acts: This, flower, one. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, 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/pg3454/27/43/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 43

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This was the flower that laughs, and no one who looked at it could help laughing too.

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**Who acts:** This, flower, one · **What happens:** be, laugh, look, help · **To what, where:** flower

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, 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 (This, flower, one), 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:pg3454:27:43
# text = This was the flower that laughs, and no one who looked at it could help laughing too.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	flower	flower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	laughs	laugh	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
9	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	10	det	_	_
10	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
17	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	_
18	too	too	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	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 | **is a** | past | This | the flower |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **laugh** | present | the flower |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **look** | past | no one |  |  |  |  | at flower | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |
| 4 | **help** | could | no one |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 5 | **laugh** | gerund | no one *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 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.

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