---
title: But he might as well have tried to squeeze blood out of a stone. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he might as well have tried to squeeze blood out of a stone. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 33

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But he might as well have tried to squeeze blood out of a stone.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** try, squeeze · **To what, where:** blood, stone

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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:pg2435:15:33
# text = But he might as well have tried to squeeze blood out of a stone.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	7	cc	_	_
5	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	fixed	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	squeeze	squeeze	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	out	out	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | might · perfect | prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **squeeze** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | prince *not said here* | blood |  | a stone |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent blood=Theme out stone=Trajectory |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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