---
title: Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and thus t… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled. Who acts: own cowardice. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Terrible Head, sentence 127

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Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled.

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**Who acts:** own cowardice · **What happens:** destroy, fulfil · **To what, where:** man, prophecy

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (own cowardice), 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:pg503:27:127
# text = Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	destroyed	destroy	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	cowardice	cowardice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	by	by	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	prophecy	prophecy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	fulfilled	fulfil	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **destroy** | past · passive | man's own cowardice and chance | man |  |  |  | thus *property* | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |
| 2 | **fulfil** | past · passive |  | the prophecy |  |  |  | thus *property* | tree rules |

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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 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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