---
title: _Better to bear a lesser evil than to risk a greater in removing it. — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: _Better to bear a lesser evil than to risk a greater in removing it. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Hedgehog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Fox and the Hedgehog, sentence 8

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\_Better to bear a lesser evil than to risk a greater in removing it.

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**What happens:** bear, risk, remove · **To what, where:** lesser evil, greater, evil

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Fox and the Hedgehog. 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:pg19994:108:8
# text = _Better to bear a lesser evil than to risk a greater in removing it.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	bear	bear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	lesser	less	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	amod	_	_
7	evil	evil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	risk	risk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	obj	_	_
13	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	removing	remove	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | to-infinitive |  | a lesser evil |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent evil=Patient |
| 2 | **risk** | to-infinitive |  | a greater |  |  |  |  | vn risk-94-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent great=Pivot |
| 3 | **remove** | gerund |  | evil |  |  |  |  | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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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