---
title: May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an acciden… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?” Who acts: I, shape. A sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 7, sentence 10

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May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?”

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**Who acts:** I, shape · **What happens:** ask, be, bear · **To what, where:** you, result

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This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, shape), 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:pg902:7:10
# text = May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?”
1	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	xcomp	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	result	result	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	accident	accident	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | may | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **bear** *not said to happen* | participle | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like that | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is a** | present | shape | the result |  |  |  | of a accident | tree rules |

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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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