---
title: Better an enemy who is intelligent Than a well-disposed person who i… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Better an enemy who is intelligent Than a well-disposed person who is a fool! Who acts: Better enemy, disposed person. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 13, sentence 101

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Better an enemy who is intelligent Than a well-disposed person who is a fool!

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**Who acts:** Better enemy, disposed person · **What happens:** be, dispose · **To what, where:** fool, Better enemy

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Better enemy, disposed person), 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:pg74064:13:106
# text = Better an enemy who is intelligent Than a well-disposed person who is a fool!
1	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	amod	_	_
2	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	intelligent	intelligent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	acl:relcl	_	_
7	Than	than	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
9	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	disposed	dispose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | a Better enemy |  |  |  |  | than a disposed person; intelligent *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **dispose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn addict-96 «NP V NP PP.Theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present | a disposed person | a fool |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (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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