---
title: My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something merry to make him laugh.’ Who acts: mother, father. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 99

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My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something merry to make him laugh.’

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**Who acts:** mother, father · **What happens:** like, fly, make, laugh · **To what, where:** something, father

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, father), 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:pg5615:4:99
# text = My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something merry to make him laugh.’
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	likes	like	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	obj	_	_
5	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	moral	moral	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	flown	fly	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	likes	like	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	obj	_	_
17	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** | present | My mother | something |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot something=Theme |
| 2 | **fly** | participle | My mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **like** | present | my father | something |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot something=Theme |
| 4 | **make** | to-infinitive | my father *not said here* | father |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **laugh** | infinitive | father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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