---
title: For a long while they tried in vain to lay hands on them. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: For a long while they tried in vain to lay hands on them. Who acts: friends. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 89

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For a long while they tried in vain to lay hands on them.

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**Who acts:** friends · **What happens:** try, lay · **To what, where:** vain, hands

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friends), 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:pg3454:2:89
# text = For a long while they tried in vain to lay hands on them.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
11	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | friends *= friend* |  |  | vain |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **lay** | to-infinitive | friends *= friend* *not said here* | hands |  |  |  | on friends *= friend* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme on they=Destination |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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