---
title: But then he was a king’s son and not a sailor, which made all the di… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But then he was a king’s son and not a sailor, which made all the difference. Who acts: sun, sailor. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg3454/29/18/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But then he was a king’s son and not a sailor, which made all the difference.

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**Who acts:** sun, sailor · **What happens:** be, make · **To what, where:** son, difference

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, sailor), 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:pg3454:29:18
# text = But then he was a king’s son and not a sailor, which made all the difference.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	sailor	sailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	18	det:predet	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	difference	difference	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | sun | a king's son and a sailor |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | past | a sailor | all difference |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset difference=Product |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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