---
title: The crow knew that it was of no use struggling, so he said: — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The crow knew that it was of no use struggling, so he said: Who acts: crow, use, Michael. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/24/93/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 93

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The crow knew that it was of no use struggling, so he said:

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**Who acts:** crow, use, Michael · **What happens:** know, be, struggle, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crow, use, Michael), 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:pg2435:24:93
# text = The crow knew that it was of no use struggling, so he said:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	crow	crow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	ccomp	_	_
10	struggling	struggle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | the crow |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | past | crow |  |  |  |  | of no use | tree rules |
| 3 | **struggle** | gerund | no use *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Michael |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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 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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