---
title: “What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foun… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. Who acts: overseer. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/53/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 2, sentence 53

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“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry.

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**Who acts:** overseer · **What happens:** say · **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 (overseer), 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:pg902:2:53
# text = “What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	5	det:predet	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	overseer	overseer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	workmen	workman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	foundry	foundry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the overseer of the workmen at the foundry |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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