---
title: “Nothing worse than death can befall me,” thought the Prince, “and d… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Nothing worse than death can befall me,” thought the Prince, “and death is better than endless sorrow.” Who acts: Nothing, Prince. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 107

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“Nothing worse than death can befall me,” thought the Prince, “and death is better than endless sorrow.”

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**Who acts:** Nothing, Prince · **What happens:** befall, think, be · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nothing, 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:pg503:26:107
# text = “Nothing worse than death can befall me,” thought the Prince, “and death is better than endless sorrow.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	nsubj	_	_
3	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	amod	_	_
4	than	than	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	befall	befall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	parataxis	_	_
8	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	ccomp	_	_
20	than	than	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	endless	endless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	sorrow	sorrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **befall** *in a quote* | can | Nothing | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the Prince |  |  |  |  | than endless sorrow; good *property* | 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.

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**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.

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