---
title: When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still. Who acts: I, Councillors. 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 52

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When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.

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**Who acts:** I, Councillors · **What happens:** hear, quarrell

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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 (I, Councillors), 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:pg902:2:52
# text = When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	last	last	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	quarrelling	quarrell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
10	still	still	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | I |  |  |  |  | of Councillors *= councillor*; last *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of they=Stimulus |
| 2 | **quarrell** | past · progressive | Councillors *= councillor* |  |  |  | still |  | 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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