---
title: The Prince was delighted, for a dog that can be shut up in an acorn… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince was delighted, for a dog that can be shut up in an acorn must be very small indeed. Who acts: Prince, dog. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/23/69/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The White Cat, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/23/) / 69

# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Prince was delighted, for a dog that can be shut up in an acorn must be very small indeed.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Prince, dog · **What happens:** be, shut up · **To what, where:** dog, acorn

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, dog), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:23:69
# text = The Prince was delighted, for a dog that can be shut up in an acorn must be very small indeed.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	delighted	delighted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	shut	shut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl:relcl	_	_
13	up	up	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	acorn	acorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	cop	_	_
19	very	very	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	_
21	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Prince |  |  |  |  | delighted, indeed *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **shut up** | can · passive |  | a dog |  | a acorn |  |  | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | must | a dog |  |  |  |  | small *property* | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/23/68/)
- next →: [sentence 70](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/23/70/)
- ↑ back to [The White Cat, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/23/)