---
title: Whereupon the Emperor, his father, made a law commanding all his sub… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Whereupon the Emperor, his father, made a law commanding all his subjects to break the smaller end of their eggs. Who acts: Emperor. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter III, 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/pg503/45/44/)

<!-- 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/) / [Chapter III](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/45/) / 44

# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter III, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Whereupon the Emperor, his father, made a law commanding all his subjects to break the smaller end of their eggs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Emperor · **What happens:** make, command, break · **To what, where:** law, subjects, smaller end · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Emperor), 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:pg503:45:44
# text = Whereupon the Emperor, his father, made a law commanding all his subjects to break the smaller end of their eggs.
1	Whereupon	whereupon	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Emperor	Emperor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	commanding	command	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	14	det:predet	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	subjects	subject	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	amod	_	_
19	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | the Emperor | a law |  |  |  | whereupon *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent law=Product |
| 2 | **command** | gerund | the Emperor *not said here* | majesty's subjects |  |  |  |  | vn supervision-95.2.2-1 «NP V NP.predicate»: agent=Agent subject=Eventuality |
| 3 | **break** | to-infinitive | the Emperor *not said here* | the smaller end of ends's eggs |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer end=Patient |

<!-- .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 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/45/43/)
- next →: [sentence 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/45/45/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter III](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/45/)