---
title: The magician tried to escape, but he was seized and bound with stron… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The magician tried to escape, but he was seized and bound with strong cords. Who acts: magician. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 228

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The magician tried to escape, but he was seized and bound with strong cords.

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**Who acts:** magician · **What happens:** try, escape, seize, bind · **To what, where:** magician

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (magician), 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:pg503:2:228
# text = The magician tried to escape, but he was seized and bound with strong cords.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	magician	magician	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
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	seized	seize	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	bound	bind	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	cords	cord	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	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 | the magician |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **escape** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the magician *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **seize** | past · passive |  | magician |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 4 | **bind** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | with strong cords | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent with cord=Co-Patient |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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