---
title: But in vain he rummaged in all the drawers; he found nothing; all ha… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But in vain he rummaged in all the drawers; he found nothing; all had been spent. Who acts: Drakestail. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Kari Woodengown, part 3, sentence 103

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But in vain he rummaged in all the drawers; he found nothing; all had been spent.

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**Who acts:** Drakestail · **What happens:** rummage, find, spend · **To what, where:** vain, nothing, all

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, 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 (Drakestail), 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:pg540:31:103
# text = But in vain he rummaged in all the drawers; he found nothing; all had been spent.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	vain	vain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	rummaged	rummage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	9	det:predet	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	drawers	drawer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	spent	spend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rummage** | past | Drakestail |  |  | vain |  | in all drawers | vn rummage-35.5-1 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent in vain=Location |
| 2 | **find** | past | Drakestail | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 3 | **spend** | past · perfect · passive |  | all |  |  |  |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Asset |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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