---
title: “Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?” — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?” Who acts: you, story. 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 74

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“Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?”

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**Who acts:** you, story · **What happens:** mean, say, have · **To what, where:** moral · **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, story), 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:pg902:5:74
# text = “Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	moral	moral	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | the story | a moral |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent moral=Patient |

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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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