---
title: “Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Cather… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.” Who acts: Candle, everybody, poor Catherine Wheel, Romance. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 6, with its dep
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/6/11/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 6, sentence 11

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“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.”

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**Who acts:** Candle, everybody, poor Catherine Wheel, Romance · **What happens:** say, listen, shake, be · **To what, where:** murmuring, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, everybody, poor Catherine Wheel, Romance), 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:pg902:6:11
# text = “Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ahem	ahem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
4	ahem	ahem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	everybody	everybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	12	nsubj	_	_
12	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	except	except	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
16	Catherine	Catherine	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	Wheel	Wheel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	still	still	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	shaking	shake	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	acl	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	murmuring	murmuring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
29	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	32	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	Romance	romance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nsubj	_	_
31	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	cop	_	_
32	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Candle | murmuring |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **listen** | past | everybody |  |  |  |  | except the poor Catherine Wheel | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **shake** | past · progressive | the poor Catherine Wheel | Wheel's head |  |  | still |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Romance | murmuring *not said here* |  |  |  | dead *property* | 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.

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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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