---
title: And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is laughing. Who acts: needle, you, Darning needle. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Story About a Darning-needle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, A Story About a Darning-needle, sentence 20

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And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is laughing.

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**Who acts:** needle, you, Darning needle · **What happens:** laugh, not see · **To what, where:** needle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Story About a Darning-needle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (needle, you, Darning needle), 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:pg640:51:20
# text = And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is laughing.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	Darning	darning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	needle	needle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	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 | needle |  | needle |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to herself=Recipient |
| 2 | **not** **see** | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **laugh** | present · progressive | a Darning needle |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «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 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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