---
title: But when his servants did so, they found the room empty, and the fro… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when his servants did so, they found the room empty, and the frozen breath laughed aloud. Who acts: servants, frozen breath. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 29

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But when his servants did so, they found the room empty, and the frozen breath laughed aloud.

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**Who acts:** servants, frozen breath · **What happens:** do, find, freeze, laugh · **To what, where:** room

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servants, frozen breath), 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:pg7277:28:29
# text = But when his servants did so, they found the room empty, and the frozen breath laughed aloud.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	frozen	freeze	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	amod	_	_
17	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
19	aloud	aloud	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | Magician's servants |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **find** | past | servants *= servant* | the room |  |  |  | empty *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent room=Topic |
| 3 | **freeze** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **laugh** | past | the frozen breath |  |  |  |  | aloud *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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