---
title: I would rather be a poor man than have to blush before him.’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I would rather be a poor man than have to blush before him.’ Who acts: I, poor man. 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 36

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I would rather be a poor man than have to blush before him.’

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**Who acts:** I, poor man · **What happens:** be, have, blush · **To what, where:** poor man

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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, poor man), 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:pg641:28:36
# text = I would rather be a poor man than have to blush before him.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	blush	blush	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	before	before	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | I | a poor man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | present | a poor man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **blush** | to-infinitive | a poor man *not said here* |  |  |  | before prince |  | vn hiccup-40.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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 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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