---
title: It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything more. Who acts: It, use. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Bruce and the Spider., sentence 9

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It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything more.

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**Who acts:** It, use · **What happens:** seem, be, try, do · **To what, where:** Bruce, anything

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, use), 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:pg18442:12:9
# text = It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to do anything more.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	obj	_	_
17	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | It |  | Bruce |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | no use for Bruce |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **try** | to-infinitive | no use for Bruce *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | no use for Bruce *not said here* | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |

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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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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