---
title: Verily I would sooner be his bond-slave than pay tribute to this evi… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: Verily I would sooner be his bond-slave than pay tribute to this evil giant. Who acts: I, bond slave. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Huon Returned, His Errand Fulfilled, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/42/66/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/) / [How Huon Returned, His Errand Fulfilled](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/42/) / 66

# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, How Huon Returned, His Errand Fulfilled, sentence 66

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Verily I would sooner be his bond-slave than pay tribute to this evil giant.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, bond slave · **What happens:** be, pay · **To what, where:** bond slave, tribute

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, How Huon Returned, His Errand Fulfilled. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, bond slave), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75339:42:66
# text = Verily I would sooner be his bond-slave than pay tribute to this evil giant.
1	Verily	verily	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
4	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	9	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	bond	bond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	slave	slave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
10	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
12	tribute	tribute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
15	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | I | Admiral's bond slave |  |  |  | Admiral *nmod:poss*; soon, verily *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pay** | infinitive | Admiral's bond slave *not said here* | tribute |  |  |  | to this evil giant | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tribute=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 65](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/42/65/)
- next →: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/42/67/)
- ↑ back to [How Huon Returned, His Errand Fulfilled](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/42/)