---
title: ‘No better fate than to be put into a barrel lined with sharp nails,… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘No better fate than to be put into a barrel lined with sharp nails, and to be rolled in it down the hill into the water.’ A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/102/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Three Dwarfs, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/) / 102

# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, sentence 102

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘No better fate than to be put into a barrel lined with sharp nails, and to be rolled in it down the hill into the water.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** put, line, roll · **To what, where:** barrel, nail

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:37:102
# text = ‘No better fate than to be put into a barrel lined with sharp nails, and to be rolled in it down the hill into the water.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	amod	_	_
4	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	put	put	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	into	into	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	barrel	barrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	lined	line	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	nails	nail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
19	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	rolled	roll	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	down	down	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
26	into	into	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  | a barrel |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP» |
| 2 | **line** | participle |  | a barrel *not said here* |  |  |  | with sharp nails | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with nail=Theme |
| 3 | **roll** | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  | nail |  | down the hill; into the water | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: in it=Source down hill=Trajectory into water=Destination |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/101/)
- next →: [sentence 103](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/103/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Dwarfs, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/37/)