---
title: They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. Who acts: children, road. 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 62

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They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it.

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**Who acts:** children, road · **What happens:** try, play, be, not like · **To what, where:** road

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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 (children, road), 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:pg902:3:62
# text = They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	dusty	dusty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **play** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  | the road |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | the road |  |  |  |  | dusty *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | the road *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of hard stones | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **like** | past · do-support | children *= child* | road |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot it=Theme |

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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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