---
title: They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. Who acts: poets, nobody, I. 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 125

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They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised.

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**Who acts:** poets, nobody, I · **What happens:** write, believe, not be · **To what, where:** poets

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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 (poets, nobody, I), 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:pg902:5:125
# text = They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	9	nsubj	_	_
9	believed	believe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past | poets *= poet* |  |  |  |  | about place | vn lecture-37.11-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about it=Topic |
| 2 | **believe** | past | nobody | poets *= poet* |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | surprised *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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