---
title: He laughed himself when he saw them till the tears rolled down his c… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He laughed himself when he saw them till the tears rolled down his cheeks. Who acts: Peter, tears. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Magic Swan, sentence 59

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He laughed himself when he saw them till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

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**Who acts:** Peter, tears · **What happens:** laugh, see, roll down · **To what, where:** Peter, eyes, cheeks

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Peter, tears), 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:pg7277:23:59
# text = He laughed himself when he saw them till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obj	_	_
4	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	rolled	roll	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	cheeks	cheek	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | Peter | Peter |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | Peter | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |
| 3 | **roll down** | past | the tears | Peter's cheeks |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location cheek=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 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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