---
title: In vain he declared his innocence; he was dismissed with no better a… — Grimms' Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain he declared his innocence; he was dismissed with no better answer. Who acts: king. A sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/13/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Grimms' Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/) / [The White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/) / 13

# Grimms' Fairy Tales, The White Snake, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In vain he declared his innocence; he was dismissed with no better answer.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** declare, dismiss · **To what, where:** innocence, vain, king

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2591:34:13
# text = In vain he declared his innocence; he was dismissed with no better answer.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	declared	declare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	innocence	innocence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	dismissed	dismiss	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
13	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	amod	_	_
14	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **declare** *speech: other* | past | king | king's innocence |  | vain |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent innocence=Attribute |
| 2 | **dismiss** | past · passive |  | king |  |  |  | with no better answer | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/14/)
- ↑ back to [The White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2591/34/)