---
title: At which they laughed very much, and asked him if he was afraid of b… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At which they laughed very much, and asked him if he was afraid of being eaten up by mice in the palace. Who acts: brothers, prince, mice. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3, 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/pg503/25/12/)

<!-- 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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The White Cat, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/25/) / 12

# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 3, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At which they laughed very much, and asked him if he was afraid of being eaten up by mice in the palace.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** brothers, prince, mice · **What happens:** laugh, ask, be, eat up · **To what, where:** prince, palace

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, prince, mice), 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:pg503:25:12
# text = At which they laughed very much, and asked him if he was afraid of being eaten up by mice in the palace.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	4	obl	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	much	much	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	advcl	_	_
15	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	xcomp	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  | prince |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | prince |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **eat up** | gerund · passive | mice |  |  | the palace |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/25/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/25/13/)
- ↑ back to [The White Cat, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/25/)