---
title: The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of t… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him into fits of laughter. Who acts: Prince, sight. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 33

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The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him into fits of laughter.

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**Who acts:** Prince, sight · **What happens:** stop up, send, sight · **To what, where:** ears, end, fits, comical musicians

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, sight), 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:pg503:23:33
# text = The Prince hastily stopped up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him into fits of laughter.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	hastily	hastily	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
10	even	even	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
16	comical	comical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	musicians	musician	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
18	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	fits	fit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stop up** | past | the Prince | end's ears |  |  |  | hastily *property* | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent ear=Destination |
| 2 | **send** | past | the sight of this comical musicians | end |  | fits of laughter | then |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **sight** |  |  | this comical musicians |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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