---
title: His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Who acts: mother, boy. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 1, sentence 73

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His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying.

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**Who acts:** mother, boy · **What happens:** have, give, cry · **To what, where:** nothing, boy

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, 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 (mother, boy), 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:pg902:1:73
# text = His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | boy's mother | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 2 | **give** | to-infinitive | boy's mother *not said here* | nothing *not said here* | boy |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | present · progressive | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (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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