---
title: “I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.” — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.” Who acts: silly question. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/4/14/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 14

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“I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.”

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**Who acts:** silly question · **What happens:** expect, devote · **To what, where:** devoted friend, silly question

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (silly question), 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:pg902:4:14
# text = “I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	devoted	devoted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	devoted	devote	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	obl	_	_
15	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **expect** *in a quote* | should | what silly question *= question* | my devoted friend |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent friend=Theme |
| 2 | **devote** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive | what silly question *= question* *not said here* |  | what silly question *= question* |  |  |  | vn dedicate-79 «NP V NP S\_ING»: to i=Goal |

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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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