---
title: It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.” — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.” Who acts: friend. 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 83

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It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.”

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**Who acts:** friend · **What happens:** be, know · **To what, where:** dangerous thing, one friends

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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 (friend), 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:pg902:6:83
# text = It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.”
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | friend | a dangerous thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | to-infinitive |  | one friends |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer friend=Stimulus |

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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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