---
title: By my faith you were better singing mass in some church than fightin… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: By my faith you were better singing mass in some church than fighting with me." Who acts: you, church. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Treachery of King John, 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/pg75339/7/29/)

<!-- 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/) / [Of the Treachery of King John](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/7/) / 29

# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, Of the Treachery of King John, sentence 29

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
By my faith you were better singing mass in some church than fighting with me."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, church · **What happens:** sing, be, fight · **To what, where:** better singing mass, church

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the Treachery of King John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, church), 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:pg75339:7:29
# text = By my faith you were better singing mass in some church than fighting with me."
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	faith	faith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	amod	_	_
7	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	amod	_	_
8	mass	mass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
11	church	church	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | you | better singing mass |  | some church |  | by my faith | tree rules |
| 3 | **fight** | gerund | some church *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with me | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with i=Co-Agent |

<!-- .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 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/7/28/)
- next →: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/7/30/)
- ↑ back to [Of the Treachery of King John](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/7/)