---
title: ‘But, but,’ said the Prince, in his most impatient tone, ‘old people… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But, but,’ said the Prince, in his most impatient tone, ‘old people should not be so long-winded! Who acts: Prince, old people. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, sentence 57

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‘But, but,’ said the Prince, in his most impatient tone, ‘old people should not be so long-winded!

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**Who acts:** Prince, old people · **What happens:** say, not be, intonate · **To what, where:** impatient tone · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, 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 (Prince, old people), 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:pg7277:36:57
# text = ‘But, but,’ said the Prince, in his most impatient tone, ‘old people should not be so long-winded!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
13	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	14	advmod	_	_
14	impatient	impatient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	tone	tone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
17	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
20	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	cop	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
24	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	winded	winded	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Prince |  |  | Prince's impatient tone |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in tone=Manner |
| 2 | **not** **is** | should | old people |  |  |  |  | winded *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **intonate** |  | Prince |  |  |  |  |  | nom tone «communication 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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