---
title: ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ exclaimed the shark, who did not like being l… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ exclaimed the shark, who did not like being laughed at. Who acts: you, shark. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, 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/pg3454/5/91/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 91

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‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ exclaimed the shark, who did not like being laughed at.

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**Who acts:** you, shark · **What happens:** not talk, exclaim, not like, laugh · **To what, where:** nonsense, shark

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, shark), 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:pg3454:5:91
# text = ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ exclaimed the shark, who did not like being laughed at.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	n't	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	talk	talk	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
8	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	shark	shark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
16	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	xcomp	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	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 | **not** **talk** | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* | nonsense |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent nonsense=Patient |
| 2 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | you *not said here* | the shark |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent shark=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **like** | past · do-support | the shark |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **laugh** *not said to happen* | gerund · passive | the shark *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V» |

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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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