---
title: And they began to laugh at the question, which seemed to them so odd… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And they began to laugh at the question, which seemed to them so odd and useless. Who acts: dogs, question. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 194

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And they began to laugh at the question, which seemed to them so odd and useless.

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**Who acts:** dogs, question · **What happens:** begin, laugh, seem · **To what, where:** question, dogs

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dogs, question), 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:pg641:4:194
# text = And they began to laugh at the question, which seemed to them so odd and useless.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	odd	odd	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	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 | **begin** | past | dogs *= dog* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **laugh** | to-infinitive | dogs *= dog* *not said here* |  |  | the question |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seem** | past | the question |  | dogs *= dog* |  |  | odd *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: 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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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