---
title: It always went too fast, but that is better than to be lagging behind. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It always went too fast, but that is better than to be lagging behind. Who acts: servant, that. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/75/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/) / 75

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, sentence 75

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It always went too fast, but that is better than to be lagging behind.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** servant, that · **What happens:** go, be, lag behind

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servant, that), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:146:75
# text = It always went too fast, but that is better than to be lagging behind.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	parataxis	_	_
11	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux	_	_
14	lagging	lag	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | servant |  |  |  |  | always, fast *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lag behind** | to-infinitive · progressive | that *not said here* |  |  |  |  | behind *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 74](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/74/)
- next →: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/76/)
- ↑ back to [The Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/)