---
title: Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not h… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not help laughing at this threat. Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, sentence 15

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Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not help laughing at this threat.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** be, not help, laugh · **To what, where:** threat

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King), 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:pg503:3:15
# text = Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not help laughing at this threat.
1	Though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	horribly	horribly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	enchanter	enchanter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
15	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	xcomp	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	threat	threat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the King |  |  |  |  | of the enchanter; afraid, horribly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **help** | could | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **laugh** *not said to happen* | gerund | king *not said here* |  |  | this threat |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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