---
title: “Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince,” said the old woman. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince,” said the old woman. Who acts: way, you, old woman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, sentence 78

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“Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince,” said the old woman.

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**Who acts:** way, you, old woman · **What happens:** be, have, say · **To what, where:** you, Prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (way, you, old woman), 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:pg503:4:78
# text = “Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince,” said the old woman.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Maybe	maybe	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
7	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | way | you |  |  |  | maybe *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | should · perfect | you | the Prince |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent prince=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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 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.

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