---
title: Tell me, therefore, what we had best do and by what way we should go." — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Tell me, therefore, what we had best do and by what way we should go." Who acts: you, we, best. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How the Bridge Mantryble Was Won, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How the Bridge Mantryble Was Won, sentence 14

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Tell me, therefore, what we had best do and by what way we should go."

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**Who acts:** you, we, best · **What happens:** tell, have, do, go · **To what, where:** me, way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How the Bridge Mantryble Was Won. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, we, best), 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:pg75339:25:14
# text = Tell me, therefore, what we had best do and by what way we should go."
1	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	1	ccomp	_	_
7	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	10	nsubj	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	advcl	_	_
14	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
15	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  | what *ccomp* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **have** | past | we |  |  |  |  | what  way *advcl* | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | present | best |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **go** | should | we | way *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location way=Theme |

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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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