---
title: ‘Weren’t they silly?’ cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burner… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Weren’t they silly?’ cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burners when they heard the story. Who acts: room, silly. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, 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/pg3454/7/99/)

<!-- 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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/7/) / 99

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 99

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Weren’t they silly?’ cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burners when they heard the story.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** room, silly · **What happens:** not be, cry, hear · **To what, where:** grandchildren, story

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (room, silly), 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:pg3454:7:99
# text = ‘Weren’t they silly?’ cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burners when they heard the story.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	silly	silly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	grandchildren	grandchild	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	charcoal	charcoal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	burners	burner	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | room |  |  |  |  | silly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | silly | the grandchildren of the charcoal burners |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grandchild=Topic |
| 3 | **hear** | past | room | the story |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 98](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/7/98/)
- next →: [sentence 100](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/7/100/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/7/)