---
title: Better had we been slain in battle than that we should rot in this p… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Better had we been slain in battle than that we should rot in this place!" Who acts: we. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared, sentence 67

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Better had we been slain in battle than that we should rot in this place!"

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** slay, rot · **To what, where:** Better, battle, place

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Oliver and His Comrades Fared. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg75339:19:67
# text = Better had we been slain in battle than that we should rot in this place!"
1	Better	Better	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	slain	slay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	rot	rot	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
15	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **slay** | past · perfect · passive |  | Better |  | battle |  | we *nsubj:pass* | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **rot** | should | we |  |  | this place |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: 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:** «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Project Gutenberg book 75339 (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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