---
title: “This is better than all!” he said to himself. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “This is better than all!” he said to himself. Who acts: This, rock. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/20/33/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 33

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“This is better than all!” he said to himself.

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**Who acts:** This, rock · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** rock · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, rock), 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:pg2435:20:33
# text = “This is better than all!” he said to himself.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	ccomp	_	_
5	than	than	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | This |  |  |  |  | than all; good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | rock |  | rock |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to himself=Recipient |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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