---
title: While they were talking she cried suddenly: — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While they were talking she cried suddenly: Who acts: ladies, Chatterer. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Princess Mayblossom, part 3, sentence 24

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While they were talking she cried suddenly:

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**Who acts:** ladies, Chatterer · **What happens:** talk, cry

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ladies, Chatterer), 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:pg540:5:24
# text = While they were talking she cried suddenly:
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **talk** | past · progressive | ladies *= lady* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Chatterer |  |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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 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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