---
title: The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness o… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated. Who acts: only thing, this, I. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 6, with its dependency 
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 6, sentence 59

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The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.

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**Who acts:** only thing, this, I · **What happens:** sustain, be, cultivate · **To what, where:** one, consciousness, feeling

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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 (only thing, this, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg902:580`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg902:6:59
# text = The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sustains	sustain	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	through	through	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	consciousness	consciousness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	immense	immense	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	inferiority	inferiority	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	everybody	everybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	15	nmod	_	_
18	else	else	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	feeling	feeling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
25	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	obj	_	_
26	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
27	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	29	advmod	_	_
29	cultivated	cultivate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	24	acl:relcl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sustain** | present | the only thing | one |  |  |  | through life | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent one=Theme through life=Instrument |
| 2 | **is a** | present | the only thing | the consciousness and a feeling |  |  |  | of the immense inferiority of everybody | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present | this | a feeling |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **cultivate** | present · perfect | I | a feeling |  |  |  | always *property* | vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Product |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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