---
title: Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’ — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’ Who acts: you, I, birds. 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.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/11/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 11

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Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’

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**Who acts:** you, I, birds · **What happens:** know, work, hear, sing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, I, birds), 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:pg902:5:11
# text = Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’
1	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	7	advmod	_	_
7	work	work	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	7	advmod	_	_
9	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	sing	sing	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **work** | present | I |  |  |  |  | always, well *property* | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | present | the birds |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |

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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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