---
title: It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by. Who acts: music, tree, musicians. 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 84

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It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by.

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**Who acts:** music, tree, musicians · **What happens:** sound, think, be, pass by · **To what, where:** musicians · **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 (music, tree, musicians), 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:pg902:3:84
# text = It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sounded	sound	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
12	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	musicians	musician	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	ccomp	_	_
18	passing	pass	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	acl	_	_
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	18	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sound** | past | music |  |  |  |  | sweet *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | tree |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | must | music | the King's musicians |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **pass by** | gerund | the King's musicians *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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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