---
title: So the King had decreed that whoever should succeed in making her la… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the King had decreed that whoever should succeed in making her laugh should marry her. Who acts: King, whoever, laugh, seven. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Goose, sentence 46

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So the King had decreed that whoever should succeed in making her laugh should marry her.

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**Who acts:** King, whoever, laugh, seven · **What happens:** decree, succeed, make, marry, laugh · **To what, where:** seven

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, whoever, laugh, seven), 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:pg540:48:46
# text = So the King had decreed that whoever should succeed in making her laugh should marry her.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	decreed	decree	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	whoever	whoever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	succeed	succeed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
10	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	laugh	laugh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **decree** | past · perfect | the King |  |  |  |  |  | vn dub-29.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **succeed** | should | whoever |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **make** | gerund | whoever *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **marry** | should | seven's laugh | seven |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |
| 5 | **laugh** |  | seven |  |  |  |  |  | nom laugh «communication intransitive»: poss=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 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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