---
title: ‘Unless thou canst defend the fountain all will be lost, and none ca… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Unless thou canst defend the fountain all will be lost, and none can defend the fountain except a knight of Arthur’s court. Who acts: thou, fountain, none. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg3454/31/7/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 7

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‘Unless thou canst defend the fountain all will be lost, and none can defend the fountain except a knight of Arthur’s court.

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**Who acts:** thou, fountain, none · **What happens:** defend, lose · **To what, where:** fountain, all

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thou, fountain, none), 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:pg3454:31:7
# text = ‘Unless thou canst defend the fountain all will be lost, and none can defend the fountain except a knight of Arthur’s court.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Unless	unless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	advcl	_	_
3	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	5	nsubj	_	_
4	canst	can	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	defend	defend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	fountain	fountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	16	nsubj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	defend	defend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	fountain	fountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	except	except	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	Arthur	Arthur	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’s	's	PART	POS	_	23	case	_	_
25	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **defend** | can | thou | the fountain |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fountain=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **lose** | future · passive | the fountain *not said here* | all |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 3 | **defend** | can | none | the fountain |  |  |  | except a knight of Arthur's court | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fountain=Beneficiary |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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