---
title: But the prince still had his reasons for being silent, and only told… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the prince still had his reasons for being silent, and only told the same story. Who acts: 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/pg3282/25/56/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 56

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But the prince still had his reasons for being silent, and only told the same story.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** have, be, tell · **To what, where:** reasons, same story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg3282:25:56
# text = But the prince still had his reasons for being silent, and only told the same story.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	reasons	reason	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	cop	_	_
10	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the prince | king's reasons |  |  | still |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reason=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | silent *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the prince *not said here* | the same story |  |  |  |  | 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 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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