---
title: Why! if they were real crackers they could not be lovelier. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Why! if they were real crackers they could not be lovelier. Who acts: fireworks. 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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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 120

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Why! if they were real crackers they could not be lovelier.

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**Who acts:** fireworks · **What happens:** not be

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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 (fireworks), 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:pg902:5:120
# text = Why! if they were real crackers they could not be lovelier.
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
6	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	crackers	cracker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	cop	_	_
12	lovelier	lovely	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	1	advcl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | could · past | fireworks *= firework* |  |  |  |  | lovely *property* | tree rules |

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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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