---
title: Better far to be devoured by an animal, than become perforce the wif… — The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth · tree and pragmatics
description: Better far to be devoured by an animal, than become perforce the wife of another man. Who acts: animal. A sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, A Sleep and a Dream., part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth, A Sleep and a Dream., part 7, sentence 42

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Better far to be devoured by an animal, than become perforce the wife of another man.

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**Who acts:** animal · **What happens:** devour, become · **To what, where:** perforce

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This is a sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, A Sleep and a Dream., part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (animal), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg68641:9:42
# text = Better far to be devoured by an animal, than become perforce the wife of another man.
1	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	amod	_	_
2	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	devoured	devour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
12	perforce	perforce	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	xcomp	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	det	_	_
17	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **devour** | to-infinitive · passive | a animal |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **become** | infinitive | a animal *not said here* | perforce |  |  |  | the wife of another man *xcomp* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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 descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, Project Gutenberg book 68641 (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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