---
title: There was nothing to be done but to sail back and tell the king of h… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was nothing to be done but to sail back and tell the king of his loss. Who acts: nothing. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 95

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There was nothing to be done but to sail back and tell the king of his loss.

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**Who acts:** nothing · **What happens:** be, do, sail back, tell · **To what, where:** king · **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 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing), 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:pg2435:5:95
# text = There was nothing to be done but to sail back and tell the king of his loss.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	sail	sail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
10	back	back	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	loss	loss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive · passive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **sail back** | to-infinitive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive | nothing *not said here* |  | the king of king's loss |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent king=Recipient |

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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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