---
title: ‘He laughs best who laughs the last;’ and he took the Princess in hi… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He laughs best who laughs the last;’ and he took the Princess in his arms. Who acts: soldier. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 205

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‘He laughs best who laughs the last;’ and he took the Princess in his arms.

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**Who acts:** soldier · **What happens:** laugh, take · **To what, where:** last, Princess, arms

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier), 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:pg7277:22:205
# text = ‘He laughs best who laughs the last;’ and he took the Princess in his arms.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	laughs	laugh	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	3	advmod	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	laughs	laugh	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	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** | present | soldier |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **laugh** | present |  | the last |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent last=Theme |
| 3 | **take** | past | soldier | the Princess |  | soldier's arms |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent princess=Value in arm=Location |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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