---
title: But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them. Who acts: unexpected misfortune. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Beauty and the Beast, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/) / 3

# The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** unexpected misfortune · **What happens:** befall · **To what, where:** sons

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (unexpected misfortune), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:14:3
# text = But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	6	advmod	_	_
6	unexpected	unexpected	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	befell	befall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **befall** | past | a unexpected misfortune | sons *= son* |  |  | day |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/4/)
- ↑ back to [Beauty and the Beast, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/)