---
title: The hobgoblin laughed till his sides ached, but still the tiny bits… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The hobgoblin laughed till his sides ached, but still the tiny bits of glass flew about. Who acts: hobgoblin, sides, tiny bits. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/8/45/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 45

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The hobgoblin laughed till his sides ached, but still the tiny bits of glass flew about.

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**Who acts:** hobgoblin, sides, tiny bits · **What happens:** laugh, ache, fly

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hobgoblin, sides, tiny bits), 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:pg5615:8:45
# text = The hobgoblin laughed till his sides ached, but still the tiny bits of glass flew about.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	hobgoblin	hobgoblin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	ached	ache	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	still	still	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	bits	bit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	about	about	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | the hobgoblin |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ache** | past | hobgoblin's sides |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **fly** | past | the tiny bits of glass |  |  |  | still | about *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 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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