---
title: “What are you laughing at?” he asked. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “What are you laughing at?” he asked. Who acts: you, Sin. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 16, sentence 2

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“What are you laughing at?” he asked.

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**Who acts:** you, Sin · **What happens:** laugh, ask · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Sin), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:16:2
# text = “What are you laughing at?” he asked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you |  |  |  |  | What *obj* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Sin |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/16/1/)
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