---
title: “It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on pu… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on purpose, knowing it was impossible.” Who acts: It, Princess. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on purpose, knowing it was impossible.”

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**Who acts:** It, Princess · **What happens:** be, try, tell, do, know · **To what, where:** Princess, dog, ring, purpose · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, Princess), 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:pg503:28:88
# text = “It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on purpose, knowing it was impossible.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux	_	_
12	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	purpose	purpose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	expl	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | It |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | must · perfect · passive |  | the Princess | dog |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Princess *not said here* | ring |  | purpose |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 5 | **know** *in a quote* | gerund | the Princess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 6 | **is** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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