---
title: "I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: "I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the Soldier. Who acts: Soldier. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Ghost Stories., part 4, sentence 21

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"I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the Soldier.

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**Who acts:** Soldier · **What happens:** suppose, be, get, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Soldier), 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:pg22373:54:21
# text = "I suppose it's quite impossible to get the better of you?" says the Soldier.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	suppose	suppose	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	csubj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	xcomp	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
16	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suppose** *in a quote* | present | the Soldier *= soldier* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **get** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **say** *speech: ask* | present | the Soldier |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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:** «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (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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