---
title: “This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look… — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified. Who acts: This, deputation, Rocket. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg902/7/41/)

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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 7, sentence 41

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“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified.

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**Who acts:** This, deputation, Rocket · **What happens:** be, say, try, look · **To what, where:** deputation, Rocket · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (This, deputation, Rocket), 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:pg902:7:41
# text = “This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	deputation	deputation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Rocket	rocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	dignified	dignified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | must | This | the deputation |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the deputation | the Rocket |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent rocket=Topic |
| 3 | **try** | past | Rocket |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **look** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Rocket *not said here* |  |  |  |  | dignified *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=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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