---
title: But it was no use; there was not a sign of the pigs. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But it was no use; there was not a sign of the pigs. Who acts: earth, use. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg5615/21/38/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 38

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But it was no use; there was not a sign of the pigs.

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**Who acts:** earth, use · **What happens:** be, not be · **To what, where:** use, sign

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (earth, use), 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:pg5615:21:38
# text = But it was no use; there was not a sign of the pigs.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | earth | no use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | past | no use | a sign |  |  |  | of the pigs | 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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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