---
title: "More melodious to me," said the lank grey beggarman, "were the wors… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "More melodious to me," said the lank grey beggarman, "were the worst of these sounds than the sweetest harping of thy harpers." Who acts: lank grey beggarman. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story-teller At Fault, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story-teller At Fault, sentence 135

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"More melodious to me," said the lank grey beggarman, "were the worst of these sounds than the sweetest harping of thy harpers."

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**Who acts:** lank grey beggarman · **What happens:** say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story-teller At Fault. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lank grey beggarman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7885:20:135
# text = "More melodious to me," said the lank grey beggarman, "were the worst of these sounds than the sweetest harping of thy harpers."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	More	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
3	melodious	melodious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	lank	lank	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	beggarman	beggarman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	worst	bad	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	3	conj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	sounds	sound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
21	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	sweetest	sweet	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	24	amod	_	_
24	harping	harping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	harpers	harper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the lank grey beggarman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | of this sounds than the sweetest harping of thy harpers; bad *property* | tree rules |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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