---
title: He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract a… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention. Who acts: Candle. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 6, sentence 10

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He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention.

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**Who acts:** Candle · **What happens:** cough, make, attract · **To what, where:** observation, attention

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Candle), 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:pg902:6:10
# text = He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	coughed	cough	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
7	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	observation	observation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	attract	attract	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
14	attention	attention	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cough** | past | Candle |  |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | past | Candle | any observation |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent observation=Product |
| 3 | **attract** | to-infinitive | Candle *not said here* | attention |  |  |  |  | vn lure-59.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent attention=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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