---
title: Since I've broken your pine tree, we'll try which is the better man… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Since I've broken your pine tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling match." Who acts: I, we. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pygmies., part 2, sentence 88

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Since I've broken your pine tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling match."

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**Who acts:** I, we · **What happens:** break, try, be · **To what, where:** pine tree, better man, wrestling match

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, we), 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:pg976:8:88
# text = Since I've broken your pine tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling match."
1	Since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	've	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
5	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	pine	pine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
16	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	parataxis	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	wrestling	wrestling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	match	match	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | present · perfect | I | your pine tree |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tree=Patient |
| 2 | **try** | future | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | the better man |  | a wrestling match |  |  | 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:** «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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