---
title: How highly the old times have been spoken of, but ours is better. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: How highly the old times have been spoken of, but ours is better. Who acts: ours. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, III. the Uncle, 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/pg27200/54/14/)

<!-- 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/) / [III. the Uncle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/54/) / 14

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, III. the Uncle, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
How highly the old times have been spoken of, but ours is better.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** ours · **What happens:** speak, be · **To what, where:** old times · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, III. the Uncle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ours), 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:pg27200:54:14
# text = How highly the old times have been spoken of, but ours is better.
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	2	advmod	_	_
2	highly	highly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	ours	our	PRON	PRP	Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | present · perfect · passive |  | the old times |  |  |  | highly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | ours |  |  |  |  | good *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 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/54/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/54/15/)
- ↑ back to [III. the Uncle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/54/)