---
title: ‘Thou art the best friend that ever a man had,’ said Manawyddan. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Thou art the best friend that ever a man had,’ said Manawyddan. Who acts: man, Manawyddan. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/1/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 1

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‘Thou art the best friend that ever a man had,’ said Manawyddan.

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**Who acts:** man, Manawyddan · **What happens:** have, say · **To what, where:** best friend · **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 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, Manawyddan), 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:pg3454:35:1
# text = ‘Thou art the best friend that ever a man had,’ said Manawyddan.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	3	nsubj	_	_
3	art	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
6	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	obj	_	_
8	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	10	advmod	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	Manawyddan	Manawyddan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | a man | the best friend |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Manawyddan |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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