---
title: In every tree that he could see there was a little child. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In every tree that he could see there was a little child. Who acts: tree, little child. 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 91

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In every tree that he could see there was a little child.

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**Who acts:** tree, little child · **What happens:** see, be · **To what, where:** tree · **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 (tree, little child), 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:pg902:3:91
# text = In every tree that he could see there was a little child.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	det	_	_
3	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | could | tree |  |  | every tree |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **be** | past | a little child |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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