---
title: The prince was quite ready, and promised to keep better command of h… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The prince was quite ready, and promised to keep better command of himself this time, and not kiss her. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15, 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/pg5615/15/38/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 38

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The prince was quite ready, and promised to keep better command of himself this time, and not kiss her.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** be, promise, keep, not kiss, command · **To what, where:** better command, princess, prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 15. 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:pg5615:15:38
# text = The prince was quite ready, and promised to keep better command of himself this time, and not kiss her.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	amod	_	_
12	command	command	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	nmod	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	kiss	kiss	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
21	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the prince |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **keep** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the prince *not said here* | better command of prince |  |  | time |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent command=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **kiss** | infinitive | the prince *not said here* | princess |  |  |  |  | vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Co-Agent |
| 5 | **command** |  |  | prince |  |  |  |  | nom command «communication 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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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