---
title: “Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingal… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, “and Life is very dear to all. Who acts: Death, Nightingale, Life. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 2, sentence 112

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“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, “and Life is very dear to all.

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**Who acts:** Death, Nightingale, Life · **What happens:** be, pay, cry · **To what, where:** great price · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Death, Nightingale, Life), 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:pg902:2:112
# text = “Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, “and Life is very dear to all.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	price	price	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	rose	rose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	Nightingale	Nightingale	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	Life	Life	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	very	very	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	parataxis	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Death | a great price |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pay** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Nightingale *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for a red rose | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent for rose=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the Nightingale |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Life |  |  |  |  | to all; dear *property* | tree rules |

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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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