---
title: ‘Verily, then, I may enter,’ said Kai, ‘for there is no better burni… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Verily, then, I may enter,’ said Kai, ‘for there is no better burnisher of swords than I.’ Who acts: I, Kai. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, 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/pg3454/39/73/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, sentence 73

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‘Verily, then, I may enter,’ said Kai, ‘for there is no better burnisher of swords than I.’

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**Who acts:** I, Kai · **What happens:** enter, say, be · **To what, where:** better burnisher · **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 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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:pg3454:39:73
# text = ‘Verily, then, I may enter,’ said Kai, ‘for there is no better burnisher of swords than I.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Verily	verily	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	enter	enter	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Kai	Kai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	17	expl	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
19	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	amod	_	_
20	burnisher	burnisher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	swords	sword	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	_
23	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	I.	i.	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **enter** | may | I |  |  |  | then |  | vn escape-51.1-1-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Kai |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | no better burnisher |  |  |  | of swords; than I. | tree rules |

<!-- .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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