---
title: It were better to die than to endure this pain. — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: It were better to die than to endure this pain. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Doings of the French Knights, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, Of the Doings of the French Knights, sentence 71

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It were better to die than to endure this pain.

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**What happens:** be, die, endure · **To what, where:** pain

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Doings of the French Knights. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg75339:22:71
# text = It were better to die than to endure this pain.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	expl	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	csubj	_	_
6	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	endure	endure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **die** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **endure** | to-infinitive |  | this pain |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme pain=Circumstance |

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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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