---
title: “‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s young… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s youngest son. Who acts: we. 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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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 4, sentence 42

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“‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s youngest son.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** not ask, say · **To what, where:** little Hans · **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 (we), 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:pg902:4:42
# text = “‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s youngest son.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	Hans	Han	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	up	up	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Miller	Miller	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	19	amod	_	_
19	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | could | we |  | little Hans | here |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent han=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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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