---
title: If she is deaf and can’t speak, she might at least laugh; depend upo… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If she is deaf and can’t speak, she might at least laugh; depend upon it, those who don’t laugh have a bad conscience.’ Who acts: Queen, those. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 85

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If she is deaf and can’t speak, she might at least laugh; depend upon it, those who don’t laugh have a bad conscience.’

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**Who acts:** Queen, those · **What happens:** be, not speak, laugh, depend, not laugh, have · **To what, where:** least, bad conscience · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Queen, those), 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:pg540:41:85
# text = If she is deaf and can’t speak, she might at least laugh; depend upon it, those who don’t laugh have a bad conscience.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	deaf	deaf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	obl	_	_
14	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
16	depend	depend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
17	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	those	that	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	25	nsubj	_	_
21	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
22	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
24	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	acl:relcl	_	_
25	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	conscience	conscience	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | Queen |  |  |  |  | deaf *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | can | Queen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **laugh** | might | Queen |  |  | least |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **depend** | infinitive | Queen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | upon maid | vn rely-70 «NP V PP.theme S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **laugh** | present · do-support |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **have** | present | those | a bad conscience |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent conscience=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.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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