---
title: Now it is all very well to abuse the God of Love, but a man cannot s… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now it is all very well to abuse the God of Love, but a man cannot struggle against his fate. Who acts: forest, man. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 3, sentence 7

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Now it is all very well to abuse the God of Love, but a man cannot struggle against his fate.

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**Who acts:** forest, man · **What happens:** be, not struggle, fate

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (forest, man), 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:pg640:16:7
# text = Now it is all very well to abuse the God of Love, but a man cannot struggle against his fate.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
4	all	all	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	abuse	abuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Love	Love	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	struggle	struggle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
20	against	against	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | forest |  |  |  | now | abuse, well *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **struggle** | can | a man |  |  |  |  | against man's fate | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **fate** |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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