---
title: Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very di… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVII. the Wee Bannock, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, LVII. the Wee Bannock, sentence 14

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Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task.

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**What happens:** succeed · **To what, where:** Barrie, difficult task

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVII. the Wee Bannock. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg14241:48:14
# text = Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task.
1	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod:desc	_	_
2	Barrie	Barrie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	nmod	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux	_	_
7	succeeded	succeed	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	xcomp	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	very	very	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **succeed** | could · perfect · passive |  | Barrie  Mr.  Barrie |  | a difficult task |  | good, scarcely *property* | 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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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- ← previous: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/48/13/)
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