---
title: The Princess said she would try not to be selfish. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The Princess said she would try not to be selfish. Who acts: Princess. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4, 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/pg23661/4/101/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/) / 101

# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 4, sentence 101

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Princess said she would try not to be selfish.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Princess · **What happens:** say, try, not be · **To what, where:** selfish · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Princess), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:4:101
# text = The Princess said she would try not to be selfish.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	selfish	selfish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **try** | would | Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **is a** | to-infinitive |  | selfish |  |  |  |  | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Project Gutenberg book 23661 (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 100](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/100/)
- next →: [sentence 102](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/102/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/4/)