---
title: Yet it were better to die than to remain in this bondage." — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Yet it were better to die than to remain in this bondage." A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Huon, Having Slain a Giant, Came to Babylon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How Huon, Having Slain a Giant, Came to Babylon, sentence 17

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Yet it were better to die than to remain in this bondage."

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**What happens:** be, die, remain · **To what, where:** bondage

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Huon, Having Slain a Giant, Came to Babylon. 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:pg75339:41:17
# text = Yet it were better to die than to remain in this bondage."
1	Yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	expl	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	csubj	_	_
7	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	remain	remain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	bondage	bondage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	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 long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **remain** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | this bondage |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in bondage=Location |

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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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