---
title: He had strict orders to refuse the prince nothing; yet he remembered… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had strict orders to refuse the prince nothing; yet he remembered the prophecy, and felt that this was a serious matter. Who acts: dog, strict orders, this. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/25/10/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 10

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He had strict orders to refuse the prince nothing; yet he remembered the prophecy, and felt that this was a serious matter.

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**Who acts:** dog, strict orders, this · **What happens:** have, refuse, remember, feel, be · **To what, where:** strict orders, nothing, prophecy, serious matter

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog, strict orders, this), 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:pg3282:25:10
# text = He had strict orders to refuse the prince nothing; yet he remembered the prophecy, and felt that this was a serious matter.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	strict	strict	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	orders	order	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	remembered	remember	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	prophecy	prophecy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
20	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | dog | strict orders |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **refuse** | to-infinitive | strict orders *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Theme |
| 3 | **remember** | past | dog | the prophecy |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent prophecy=Theme |
| 4 | **feel** | past | dog *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **is a** | past | this | a serious matter |  |  |  |  | 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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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