---
title: They began to talk, and the prince told his story and sad fate. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They began to talk, and the prince told his story and sad fate. Who acts: princes, prince. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/3/30/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 30

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They began to talk, and the prince told his story and sad fate.

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**Who acts:** princes, prince · **What happens:** begin, talk, tell · **To what, where:** story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, 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 (princes, prince), 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:pg2435:3:30
# text = They began to talk, and the prince told his story and sad fate.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | princes *= prince* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **talk** | to-infinitive | princes *= prince* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the prince | Man's story and sad fate |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent story=Recipient |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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