---
title: “Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fel… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow named Hans.” 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/pg902/4/21/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 21

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“Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow named Hans.”

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**Who acts:** Linnet · **What happens:** say, be, name · **To what, where:** honest little fellow · **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:pg902:4:21
# text = “Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow named Hans.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	8	advmod	_	_
3	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Linnet	linnet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	14	expl	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	honest	honest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	_
19	named	name	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
20	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | the Linnet | a honest little fellow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **name** *in a quote* | participle |  | a honest little fellow *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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