---
title: But the young prince had reasons for keeping his own secret, and he… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the young prince had reasons for keeping his own secret, and he answered: Who acts: young prince, reasons, prince. 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 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/pg3282/25/32/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 32

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But the young prince had reasons for keeping his own secret, and he answered:

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**Who acts:** young prince, reasons, prince · **What happens:** have, keep, answer · **To what, where:** reasons, own secret

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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 (young prince, reasons, 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:pg3282:25:32
# text = But the young prince had reasons for keeping his own secret, and he answered:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
6	reasons	reason	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	keeping	keep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the young prince | reasons |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reason=Patient |
| 2 | **keep** | gerund | reasons *not said here* | prince's own secret |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent secret=Theme |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 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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