---
title: “What are you laughing at this time, Brother Frog?” asked the Crow. — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: “What are you laughing at this time, Brother Frog?” asked the Crow. Who acts: you, Crow. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Frog and the Crow., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/9/8/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Folk tales from Tibet](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/) / [The Frog and the Crow.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/9/) / 8

# Folk tales from Tibet, The Frog and the Crow., sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What are you laughing at this time, Brother Frog?” asked the Crow.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, Crow · **What happens:** laugh, ask · **To what, where:** Brother Frog · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Frog and the Crow.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Crow), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75000:9:8
# text = “What are you laughing at this time, Brother Frog?” asked the Crow.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	ccomp	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	Brother	Brother	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	Frog	Frog	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Crow	crow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | Brother Frog |  |  | time | What *obj* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Crow |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, Project Gutenberg book 75000 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/9/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/9/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Frog and the Crow.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/9/)