---
title: “My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea,… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. Who acts: roses, white. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/93/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Happy Prince, and Other Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/) / [Opening, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/) / 93

# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 2, sentence 93

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** roses, white · **What happens:** be, answer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (roses, white), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg902:2:93
# text = “My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	roses	rose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	as	as	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	foam	foam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	whiter	white	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	conj	_	_
23	than	than	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	mountain	mountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | My roses |  |  |  |  | white *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | white |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 92](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/92/)
- next →: [sentence 94](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/94/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/2/)