---
title: ‘In truth,’ said Guenevere the queen, who had listened to the tale,… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘In truth,’ said Guenevere the queen, who had listened to the tale, ‘thou wert better hanged, Kai, than use such speech towards a man like Owen.’ Who acts: Guenevere, queen, Kai. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/30/67/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 67

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘In truth,’ said Guenevere the queen, who had listened to the tale, ‘thou wert better hanged, Kai, than use such speech towards a man like Owen.’

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**Who acts:** Guenevere, queen, Kai · **What happens:** say, listen, use · **To what, where:** truth, such speech · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Guenevere, queen, Kai), 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:pg3454:30:67
# text = ‘In truth,’ said Guenevere the queen, who had listened to the tale, ‘thou wert better hanged, Kai, than use such speech towards a man like Owen.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Guenevere	Guenevere	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	listened	listen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	acl:relcl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	20	nsubj	_	_
20	wert	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
21	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	ccomp	_	_
22	hanged	hanged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	Kai	Kai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
27	use	use	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
28	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obj	_	_
30	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
33	like	like	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	Owen	Owen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Guenevere |  |  | truth |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **listen** | past · perfect | the queen |  |  |  |  | to the tale | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to tale=Theme |
| 3 | **use** | infinitive | Kai | such speech |  |  |  | towards a man like Owen | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent speech=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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