---
title: He racked his brains to remember, but he could not call to mind a si… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He racked his brains to remember, but he could not call to mind a single thing! Who acts: King. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 3, sentence 46

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He racked his brains to remember, but he could not call to mind a single thing!

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** rack, remember, not call, mind · **To what, where:** brains, single thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 3. 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.

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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:pg3027:3:46
# text = He racked his brains to remember, but he could not call to mind a single thing!
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	racked	rack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	brains	brain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	mind	mind	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	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 | **rack** | past | King | King's brains |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brain=Patient |
| 2 | **remember** | to-infinitive | King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **call** | could | King |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **mind** | to-infinitive | King *not said here* | a single thing |  |  |  |  | vn caring-75.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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