---
title: “Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet. Who acts: Linnet. 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/pg902/4/17/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 17

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“Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet.

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**Who acts:** Linnet · **What happens:** let, tell, say · **To what, where:** Linnet, story, you, subject · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Linnet), 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:pg902:4:17
# text = “Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	subject	subject	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Linnet	linnet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the Linnet *= linnet* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive | the Linnet *= linnet* *not said here* | a story | you | the subject |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient story=Topic |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Linnet |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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