---
title: “I can do better than that,” cried the youth, and went to the other… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I can do better than that,” cried the youth, and went to the other anvil. Who acts: youth. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 166

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“I can do better than that,” cried the youth, and went to the other anvil.

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**Who acts:** youth · **What happens:** do, cry, go · **To what, where:** other anvil · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth), 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:pg503:13:166
# text = “I can do better than that,” cried the youth, and went to the other anvil.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	parataxis	_	_
5	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	anvil	anvil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | can | the youth *= youth* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the youth |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **go** | past | the youth *not said here* |  |  | the other anvil |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to anvil=Initial\_Location |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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