---
title: "Perhaps you can do better than they," said his father scorn-ful-ly. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Perhaps you can do better than they," said his father scorn-ful-ly. Who acts: you, scorn ful ly, father. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Alexander and Bucephalus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Alexander and Bucephalus., sentence 8

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"Perhaps you can do better than they," said his father scorn-ful-ly.

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**Who acts:** you, scorn ful ly, father · **What happens:** do, say, ly · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Alexander and Bucephalus.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, scorn ful ly, father), 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:pg18442:37:8
# text = "Perhaps you can do better than they," said his father scorn-ful-ly.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
6	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
7	than	than	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
14	scorn	scorn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	ful	ful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	ly	ly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  | perhaps, well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | man's scorn ful ly |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **ly** |  | father |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «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.

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