---
title: They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anythin… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called it humbug. Who acts: Humbug. 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 89

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They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called it humbug.

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**Who acts:** Humbug · **What happens:** be, object, call · **To what, where:** anything, sigh · **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 (Humbug), 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:pg902:6:89
# text = They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called it humbug.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	extremely	extremely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	practical	practical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	whenever	whenever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	9	advmod	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	objected	object	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	9	obl	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	humbug	humbug	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Humbug |  |  |  |  | extremely, practical *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **object** *speech: other* | past | Humbug |  | anything |  |  | whenever *property* | vn complain-37.8 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to anything=Recipient |
| 3 | **call** | past | Humbug | sigh |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |

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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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