---
title: They thought that the misfortune which for so many earlier years had… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They thought that the misfortune which for so many earlier years had befallen them had again happened and that their nestlings had disappeared. Who acts: birds, misfortune, nestlings. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 87

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They thought that the misfortune which for so many earlier years had befallen them had again happened and that their nestlings had disappeared.

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**Who acts:** birds, misfortune, nestlings · **What happens:** think, befall, happen, disappear · **To what, where:** birds · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (birds, misfortune, nestlings), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:339`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:4:87
# text = They thought that the misfortune which for so many earlier years had befallen them had again happened and that their nestlings had disappeared.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	earlier	early	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	amod	_	_
11	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	befallen	befall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	acl:relcl	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	again	again	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	nestlings	nestling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	disappeared	disappear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **befall** | past · perfect | the misfortune | birds *= bird* |  |  | year |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect | the misfortune |  |  |  | again |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **disappear** | past · perfect | birds's nestlings |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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