---
title: Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friend… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friends to be idle or sluggish. Who acts: Idleness, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/4/)

<!-- 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/) / 4

# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 5, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friends to be idle or sluggish.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Idleness, I · **What happens:** be, not do · **To what, where:** great sin

<!-- .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 (Idleness, I), 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:pg902:5:4
# text = Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friends to be idle or sluggish.
1	Idleness	idleness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	sin	sin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
19	idle	idle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	acl	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	sluggish	sluggish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Idleness | a great sin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **do** | present | I |  |  |  |  | like any; certainly *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | idle *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/5/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/5/)