---
title: "Are not two stout sticks as good as two horses for helping one alon… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Are not two stout sticks as good as two horses for helping one along on the road? Who acts: two stout sticks. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, sentence 32

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"Are not two stout sticks as good as two horses for helping one along on the road?

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**Who acts:** two stout sticks · **What happens:** be, help · **To what, where:** one, road

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two stout sticks), 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:pg7128:26:32
# text = "Are not two stout sticks as good as two horses for helping one along on the road?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
5	stout	stout	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	as	as	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
12	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	helping	help	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	obj	_	_
15	along	along	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | two stout sticks |  |  |  |  | as two horses; good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **help** *in a quote* | gerund | two stout sticks *not said here* | one |  | the road |  | along *property* | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Beneficiary |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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