---
title: “What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away. Who acts: silly thing Love, Student. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 3, sentence 40

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“What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away.

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**Who acts:** silly thing Love, Student · **What happens:** be, say, walk away · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (silly thing Love, Student), 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:pg902:3:40
# text = “What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	6	det	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	silly	silly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Student	Student	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
16	away	away	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | what silly thing Love |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Student |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **walk away** | past | Student |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn resign-10.11-1 «NP V»: 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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