---
title: The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. — The Happy Prince, and Other Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. Who acts: 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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# The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 7, sentence 52

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The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn.

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**Who acts:** Rocket · **What happens:** be, take, burn

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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 (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:pg902:7:52
# text = The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Rocket	rocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	damp	damp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	burn	burn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Rocket |  |  |  |  | damp *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | past | Rocket |  |  |  | time |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **burn** | to-infinitive | Rocket *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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