---
title: I know better than to hurt so rare a bird. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I know better than to hurt so rare a bird. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 3, sentence 12

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I know better than to hurt so rare a bird.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** know, hurt · **To what, where:** rare bird

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg641:28:12
# text = I know better than to hurt so rare a bird.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	2	advmod	_	_
4	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	hurt	hurt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	rare	rare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present | I |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **hurt** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | a rare bird |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bird=Patient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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