---
title: The parents laughed at the little man’s words, but did not believe h… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The parents laughed at the little man’s words, but did not believe him for a moment. Who acts: parents, little man. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Hazel-nut Child (29), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Hazel-nut Child (29), sentence 35

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The parents laughed at the little man’s words, but did not believe him for a moment.

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**Who acts:** parents, little man · **What happens:** laugh, not believe, word · **To what, where:** words, man

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Hazel-nut Child (29). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (parents, little man), 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:pg640:40:35
# text = The parents laughed at the little man’s words, but did not believe him for a moment.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	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 parents |  |  | the little man's words |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **believe** | past · do-support | the parents *not said here* | man |  |  | moment |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 3 | **word** |  | the little man |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: 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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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