---
title: If the messenger fails he must lose his life, lest we be betrayed.” — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If the messenger fails he must lose his life, lest we be betrayed.” Who acts: messenger. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 72

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If the messenger fails he must lose his life, lest we be betrayed.”

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**Who acts:** messenger · **What happens:** fail, lose, betray · **To what, where:** life, we

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (messenger), 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:pg503:34:72
# text = If the messenger fails he must lose his life, lest we be betrayed.”
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	messenger	messenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	fails	fail	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	lest	lest	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	betrayed	betray	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | the messenger |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lose** | must | messenger | messenger's life |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Eventuality |
| 3 | **betray** | infinitive · passive |  | we |  |  |  |  | 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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