---
title: This was certainly not what the prince had expected to hear. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This was certainly not what the prince had expected to hear. Who acts: This, prince. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23, 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/pg3027/23/52/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 23, sentence 52

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This was certainly not what the prince had expected to hear.

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**Who acts:** This, prince · **What happens:** not be, expect, hear · **To what, where:** prince

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, 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:pg3027:23:52
# text = This was certainly not what the prince had expected to hear.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	expected	expect	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | past | This |  |  |  |  | certainly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **expect** | past · perfect · passive |  | the prince |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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