---
title: The three Princes had nothing to say against the decision of the Sul… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The three Princes had nothing to say against the decision of the Sultan. Who acts: three Princes. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou, part 2, sentence 27

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The three Princes had nothing to say against the decision of the Sultan.

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**Who acts:** three Princes · **What happens:** have, say, decide · **To what, where:** nothing, Sultan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (three Princes), 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:pg503:50:27
# text = The three Princes had nothing to say against the decision of the Sultan.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	Princes	prince	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	against	against	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	decision	decision	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Sultan	Sultan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the three Princes | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the three Princes *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  | against the decision of the Sultan | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **decide** |  |  | the Sultan |  |  |  |  | nom decision «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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