---
title: So the gentleman burst out a-laughing, and told them to look up into… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So the gentleman burst out a-laughing, and told them to look up into the sky, and that it was only the shadow in the water. Who acts: gentleman, sky. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, sentence 49

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So the gentleman burst out a-laughing, and told them to look up into the sky, and that it was only the shadow in the water.

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**Who acts:** gentleman, sky · **What happens:** burst out, laugh, tell, look up, be · **To what, where:** people, shadow, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentleman, sky), 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:pg7439:7:49
# text = So the gentleman burst out a-laughing, and told them to look up into the sky, and that it was only the shadow in the water.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	burst	burst	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
24	only	only	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **burst out** | past | the gentleman |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **laugh** | gerund | the gentleman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the gentleman *not said here* |  | people |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **look up** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the gentleman *not said here* |  |  |  |  | into the sky | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent into sky=Theme |
| 5 | **is a** | past | sky | the shadow |  | the water |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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