---
title: What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practica… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.” Who acts: pity. 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 135

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What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.”

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**Who acts:** pity · **What happens:** be, not mean, do · **To what, where:** pity, anything, practical good

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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 (pity), 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:pg902:2:135
# text = What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.”
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
15	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	nsubj	_	_
16	practical	practical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | pity | a pity *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot pity=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **mean** | present · do-support | a pity | anything |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | infinitive | a pity *not said here* | practical good |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |

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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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