---
title: In vain, however, for the robbers with their sabres soon killed him. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain, however, for the robbers with their sabres soon killed him. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/48/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 48

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In vain, however, for the robbers with their sabres soon killed him.

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**What happens:** kill · **To what, where:** captain, vain

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg503:34:48
# text = In vain, however, for the robbers with their sabres soon killed him.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	sabres	sabre	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
13	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** | past |  | captain |  | vain |  | for the robbers with robbers's sabres; however, soon *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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 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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