---
title: “‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ h… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he inquired in a shy and timid voice. Who acts: you, garden, I, Miller. 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/pg902/5/14/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 14

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“‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he inquired in a shy and timid voice.

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**Who acts:** you, garden, I, Miller · **What happens:** think, be, say, inquire · **To what, where:** shy voice · **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, garden, I, Miller), 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:pg902:5:14
# text = “‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he inquired in a shy and timid voice.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	ccomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
9	unfriendly	unfriendly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
24	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	timid	timid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	_
27	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | would | garden |  |  |  |  | of me; unfriendly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | past | I |  |  |  |  | busy *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **inquire** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | Miller |  |  | a shy voice |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how 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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