---
title: It might be better for him there or worse, but stay with his eldest… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It might be better for him there or worse, but stay with his eldest son any longer he could not. Who acts: mouth. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Two Princes, part 1, sentence 64

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It might be better for him there or worse, but stay with his eldest son any longer he could not.

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**Who acts:** mouth · **What happens:** be, stay

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Two Princes, 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 (mouth), 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:pg29672:22:64
# text = It might be better for him there or worse, but stay with his eldest son any longer he could not.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	16	amod	_	_
16	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	any	any	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	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 | **is** | might | mouth |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | mouth *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stay** | infinitive | mouth *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with man's eldest son | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme with son=Location |

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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:** «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», Project Gutenberg book 29672 (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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