---
title: The Prince, who this time never doubted the little toad’s power to h… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince, who this time never doubted the little toad’s power to help him, told her his difficulty at once. Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 5, sentence 1

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The Prince, who this time never doubted the little toad’s power to help him, told her his difficulty at once.

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**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** not doubt, help, tell · **To what, where:** power, Prince, difficulty, toad · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 5. 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:pg7277:30:1
# text = The Prince, who this time never doubted the little toad’s power to help him, told her his difficulty at once.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
7	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	doubted	doubt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
19	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **doubt** | past | the Prince | the little toad's power |  |  | time |  | vn judgment-33.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Theme |
| 2 | **help** | to-infinitive | the Prince *not said here* |  | Prince |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the Prince *not said here* | Prince's difficulty | toad |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent she=Recipient difficulty=Topic |

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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 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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