---
title: "The worst of it, brother, is this," said the prince. " — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "The worst of it, brother, is this," said the prince. " Who acts: worst. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3, sentence 69

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"The worst of it, brother, is this," said the prince. "

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**Who acts:** worst · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** this, prince · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Story of the Unlucky Days, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (worst), 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:pg29672:27:69
# text = "The worst of it, brother, is this," said the prince. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	worst	bad	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	13	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | this |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the worst and brother | the prince |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent prince=Topic |

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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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