---
title: But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better done than you co… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better done than you could do it.’ Who acts: king, That, you. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Iron Hans, 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/pg2591/59/195/)

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# Grimms' Fairy Tales, Iron Hans, sentence 195

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But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better done than you could do it.’

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**Who acts:** king, That, you · **What happens:** say, not be, be, do · **To what, where:** soup · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Iron Hans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, That, you), 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:pg2591:59:195
# text = But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better done than you could do it.’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	expl	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	parataxis	_	_
15	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	xcomp	_	_
16	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	csubj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** | present | That |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **do** | could | you | soup |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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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