---
title: He stuck to his old speech, ‘It is better that one life should be lo… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He stuck to his old speech, ‘It is better that one life should be lost than two.’ Who acts: Ritter. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Mother Holle, part 2, sentence 61

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He stuck to his old speech, ‘It is better that one life should be lost than two.’

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**Who acts:** Ritter · **What happens:** stick, be, lose, speak · **To what, where:** one life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ritter), 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:pg540:45:61
# text = He stuck to his old speech, ‘It is better that one life should be lost than two.’
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	expl	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	parataxis	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	advcl	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stick** | past | Ritter |  |  |  |  | to Ritter's old speech | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent to speech=Co-Patient |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lose** | should · passive |  | one life |  |  |  | than two | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **speak** |  | Ritter |  |  |  |  |  | nom speech «communication transitive»: poss=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 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.

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