The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 1, sentence 20
“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon.
Who acts: you, sensible mother, little boy · What happens: be, ask, cry · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, sensible mother, little boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
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
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 13 asked | punct |
| 2 | Why | why | ADV | PronType=Int | 3 ca | advmod |
| 3 | ca | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 13 asked | parataxis |
| 4 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 3 ca | advmod |
| 5 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 10 Prince | nsubj |
| 6 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 10 Prince | cop |
| 7 | like | like | ADP | _ | 10 Prince | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 Prince | det |
| 9 | Happy | happy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 Prince | amod |
| 10 | Prince | Prince | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 ca | parataxis |
| 11 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 10 Prince | punct |
| 12 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 ca | punct |
| 13 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 mother | det |
| 15 | sensible | sensible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 mother | amod |
| 16 | mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 asked | obj |
| 17 | of | of | ADP | _ | 20 boy | case |
| 18 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 20 boy | nmod:poss |
| 19 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 boy | amod |
| 20 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 mother | nmod |
| 21 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 23 crying | nsubj |
| 22 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 23 crying | aux |
| 23 | crying | cry | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 20 boy | acl:relcl |
| 24 | for | for | ADP | _ | 26 moon | case |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 moon | det |
| 26 | moon | moon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 crying | obl |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is in a quote | infinitive | you | like the Happy Prince | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | a sensible mother of CARLOS's little boy | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | cry speech: express | past · progressive | CARLOS's little boy | for the moon | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient S_INF»: agent=Agent for moon=Recipient |
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.
Text: «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/1/20/