---
title: But he feared nothing, except that his plums should decay, and this… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he feared nothing, except that his plums should decay, and this never happened. Who acts: mischief, plums, this. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 265

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But he feared nothing, except that his plums should decay, and this never happened.

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**Who acts:** mischief, plums, this · **What happens:** fear, decay, not happen · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mischief, plums, this), 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:pg7277:22:265
# text = But he feared nothing, except that his plums should decay, and this never happened.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	feared	fear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	except	except	ADP	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	plums	plum	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	decay	decay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	nsubj	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fear** | past | mischief | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **decay** | should | mischief's plums |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **happen** | past | this |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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