---
title: “What I sing of, he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What I sing of, he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain. Who acts: true lover, lover. 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 74

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“What I sing of, he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain.

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**Who acts:** true lover, lover · **What happens:** sing, suffer, be · **To what, where:** joy, true lover, pain

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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 (true lover, lover), 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:pg902:2:74
# text = “What I sing of, he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sing	sing	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	suffers	suffer	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | present | the true lover *= lover* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **suffer** *in a quote* | present | lover |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | joy | the true lover *= lover* |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | lover's pain |  |  |  |  | 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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