---
title: ‘Well,’ thought the prince as he went away, ‘unless there is some tr… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well,’ thought the prince as he went away, ‘unless there is some trick behind, this does not sound very hard. Who acts: prince, trick, this. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 29

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‘Well,’ thought the prince as he went away, ‘unless there is some trick behind, this does not sound very hard.

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**Who acts:** prince, trick, this · **What happens:** think, go away, be, not sound · **To what, where:** prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, 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 (prince, trick, this), 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:pg641:10:29
# text = ‘Well,’ thought the prince as he went away, ‘unless there is some trick behind, this does not sound very hard.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
11	away	away	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	16	expl	_	_
16	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	advcl	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	trick	trick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
19	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
21	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	nsubj	_	_
22	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
24	sound	sound	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
25	very	very	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | the prince |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent prince=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 2 | **go away** | past | prince |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | some trick |  |  | there |  | behind *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **sound** | present · do-support | this |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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