---
title: They laughed at this oft-repeated caution, saying to each other: “Ho… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They laughed at this oft-repeated caution, saying to each other: “How can our gold thread lose its brightness, and have we any chance of speaking to a man?” Who acts: misfortunes, chance. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, with its dependency tree 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They laughed at this oft-repeated caution, saying to each other: “How can our gold thread lose its brightness, and have we any chance of speaking to a man?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** misfortunes, chance · **What happens:** laugh, repeat, say, lose, have, speak · **To what, where:** oft repeated caution, each, brightness, we · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (misfortunes, chance), 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:pg503:26:8
# text = They laughed at this oft-repeated caution, saying to each other: “How can our gold thread lose its brightness, and have we any chance of speaking to a man?”
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nsubj	_	_
5	oft	oft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	repeated	repeat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	amod	_	_
8	caution	caution	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	10	obl	_	_
13	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
18	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
19	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
21	lose	lose	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
22	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	brightness	brightness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
27	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	29	det	_	_
29	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
30	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
31	speaking	speak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	29	acl	_	_
32	to	to	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | misfortunes *= misfortune* |  |  | oft repeated caution |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **repeat** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | misfortunes *= misfortune* *not said here* |  | each |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to each=Recipient |
| 4 | **lose** *in a quote* | can |  | caution's brightness |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brightness=Eventuality |
| 5 | **have** *in a quote* | present |  | we |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | gerund | any chance *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to a man | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to man=Co-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.

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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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