---
title: Many fell before the magic sword, and the prince laboured on in spit… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Many fell before the magic sword, and the prince laboured on in spite of weakness and fatigue till he was almost worn out. Who acts: Many, prince. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/41/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 41

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Many fell before the magic sword, and the prince laboured on in spite of weakness and fatigue till he was almost worn out.

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**Who acts:** Many, prince · **What happens:** fall, labour, wear out, spite · **To what, where:** magic sword, prince, weakness

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Many, prince), 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:pg3282:4:41
# text = Many fell before the magic sword, and the prince laboured on in spite of weakness and fatigue till he was almost worn out.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	nsubj	_	_
2	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	laboured	labour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	spite	spite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	weakness	weakness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	fatigue	fatigue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
19	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux:pass	_	_
22	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	worn	wear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	advcl	_	_
24	out	out	ADP	RP	_	23	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | past | Many |  |  | the magic sword |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme before sword=Location |
| 2 | **labour** | participle | the prince |  |  |  |  | on spite of weakness and fatigue | vn cooperate-73.1-3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent on spite=Theme |
| 3 | **wear out** | past · passive |  | prince |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: subject=Source |
| 4 | **spite** |  |  | weakness |  |  |  |  | nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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