---
title: He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, beca… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, because he was the King. Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/109/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Happy Prince, and Other Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/) / [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/) / 109

# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 109

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, because he was the King.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** play, dare, tell, be · **To what, where:** one, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg902:5:109
# text = He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, because he was the King.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	badly	badly	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	8	det	_	_
8	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	11	advmod	_	_
11	dared	dare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past | King |  |  |  |  | badly *property* | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **dare** | past · perfect · passive |  | no one |  |  | ever |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  | King |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 4 | **is a** | past | King | the King |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 108](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/108/)
- next →: [sentence 110](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/110/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/)