---
title: But for Heaven’s sake don’t laugh or we are lost.” — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: But for Heaven’s sake don’t laugh or we are lost.” A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 9, sentence 101

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But for Heaven’s sake don’t laugh or we are lost.”

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**What happens:** not laugh, lose · **To what, where:** we

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg65965:9:103
# text = But for Heaven’s sake don’t laugh or we are lost.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	for	for	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	Heaven	Heaven	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	sake	sake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
6	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **laugh** | present · do-support |  |  |  |  |  | for Heaven's sake | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lose** | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |

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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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