---
title: Twere better I had never been born!"--But St Michael said to him, "W… — Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Twere better I had never been born!"--But St Michael said to him, "Weep not, 'twill all end happily. Who acts: Michael. A sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Vampire and St Michael, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, The Vampire and St Michael, sentence 90

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Twere better I had never been born!"--But St Michael said to him, "Weep not, 'twill all end happily.

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**Who acts:** Michael · **What happens:** not bear, say, not weep, end · **To what, where:** better, St, twill · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales», The Vampire and St Michael. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Michael), 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:pg29672:8:90
# text = Twere better I had never been born!"--But St Michael said to him, "Weep not, 'twill all end happily.
1	Twere	twere	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	St	St	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod:desc	_	_
13	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	Weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	twill	twill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
24	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	25	advmod	_	_
25	end	end	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
26	happily	happily	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **bear** | past · perfect · passive |  | better |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | Michael  St |  | St |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **weep** | infinitive | Michael  St *not said here* | twill |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **end** | present | Michael  St *not said here* |  |  |  |  | happily *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=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:** «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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