---
title: But the Prince answered: ‘My lord and father, I would that my will w… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Prince answered: ‘My lord and father, I would that my will were as free as my love for you is great. Who acts: Prince, I, you, my. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Snake, sentence 73

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But the Prince answered: ‘My lord and father, I would that my will were as free as my love for you is great.

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**Who acts:** Prince, I, you, my · **What happens:** answer, that, be, love · **To what, where:** lord

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, I, you, my), 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:pg7277:25:73
# text = But the Prince answered: ‘My lord and father, I would that my will were as free as my love for you is great.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	lord	lord	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	that	that	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	as	as	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
20	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the Prince | My lord and father |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **that** | would | I |  |  |  |  | as my love | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | future | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | free *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | great *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **love** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom love «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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