---
title: Great was the price at which they sold their lives; but scarcely thr… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Great was the price at which they sold their lives; but scarcely threescore were left. Who acts: Great price. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, The Battle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, The Battle, sentence 141

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Great was the price at which they sold their lives; but scarcely threescore were left.

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**Who acts:** Great price · **What happens:** be, sell, leave · **To what, where:** Great price, lives

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, The Battle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Great price), 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:pg75339:31:141
# text = Great was the price at which they sold their lives; but scarcely threescore were left.
1	Great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	price	price	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	obl	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sold	sell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	threescore	threescore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | the Great price |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sell** | past | the Great price | Frenchmen's lives |  |  |  | which *obl*; Frenchmen *= frenchman* *nsubj* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent life=Theme at which=Asset |
| 3 | **leave** | past · passive | the Great price *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V» |

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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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