---
title: I would rather lose a dozen cherry trees than that you should tell o… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: I would rather lose a dozen cherry trees than that you should tell one false-hood." Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, George Washington and His Hatchet., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/21/16/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [George Washington and His Hatchet.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/21/) / 16

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, George Washington and His Hatchet., sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I would rather lose a dozen cherry trees than that you should tell one false-hood."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** lose, tell · **To what, where:** dozen cherry trees, one false hood · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, George Washington and His Hatchet.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:21:16
# text = I would rather lose a dozen cherry trees than that you should tell one false-hood."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	dozen	dozen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
7	cherry	cherry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
9	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
15	false	false	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	hood	hood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lose** | would | I | dozen cherry trees |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Eventuality |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | should | you | one false hood |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent hood=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/21/15/)
- next →: [Grace Darling., 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/1/)
- ↑ back to [George Washington and His Hatchet.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/21/)