---
title: Better see than be seen, thought he. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Better see than be seen, thought he. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Coffey, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Andrew Coffey, sentence 42

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Better see than be seen, thought he.

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**What happens:** see, think · **To what, where:** Andrew

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Coffey. 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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**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:pg7885:27:42
# text = Better see than be seen, thought he.
1	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	advmod	_	_
2	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	advcl	_	_
3	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | Andrew |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot he=Theme |

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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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