---
title: ‘If he is to be a thief at all, he had better be a good one. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If he is to be a thief at all, he had better be a good one. Who acts: Moti. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 93

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‘If he is to be a thief at all, he had better be a good one.

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**Who acts:** Moti · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** thief, all, better good one

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, 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 (Moti), 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:pg3454:1:93
# text = ‘If he is to be a thief at all, he had better be a good one.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	thief	thief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	advcl	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | Moti | a thief |  | all |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | Moti |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | infinitive |  | a better good one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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:** «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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