---
title: "Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. " — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. " A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Wayside. Introductory., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Wayside. Introductory., sentence 25

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"Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. "

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**What happens:** choose, handle, reply · **To what, where:** Better, Eustace Bright · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Wayside. Introductory.. 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:pg976:2:25
# text = "Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	chosen	choose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	7	advmod	_	_
7	handled	handle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	Eustace	Eustace	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	Bright	Bright	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** *in a quote* | participle · passive |  | Better |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **handle** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn hold-15.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | Eustace Bright |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bright=Topic |

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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:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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