---
title: ‘What can a beggar such as I promise you?’ answered the prince. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What can a beggar such as I promise you?’ answered the prince. Who acts: I, beggar. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 38

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‘What can a beggar such as I promise you?’ answered the prince.

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**Who acts:** I, beggar · **What happens:** promise, answer · **To what, where:** beggar, you, prince

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, 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 (I, beggar), 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:pg641:9:38
# text = ‘What can a beggar such as I promise you?’ answered the prince.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	beggar	beggar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
6	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	9	case	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	6	fixed	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	promise	promise	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
13	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | present | I | a beggar *not said here* | you |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent you=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | can | a beggar |  | the prince |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent what=Theme prince=Eventuality |

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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 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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