---
title: “Is there nothing you would like?” he said at last in despair. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Is there nothing you would like?” he said at last in despair. Who acts: nothing, you, husband. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg2435/29/31/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 31

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“Is there nothing you would like?” he said at last in despair.

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**Who acts:** nothing, you, husband · **What happens:** be, like, say · **To what, where:** last · **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 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, you, husband), 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:pg2435:29:31
# text = “Is there nothing you would like?” he said at last in despair.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	obl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **like** *in a quote* | would | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | husband |  |  | last |  | in despair | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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