---
title: There was nothing else to be done than to try to answer the troll’s… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was nothing else to be done than to try to answer the troll’s riddles. Who acts: nothing, troll. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/27/80/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/27/) / 80

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 80

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was nothing else to be done than to try to answer the troll’s riddles.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** nothing, troll · **What happens:** be, do, try, answer, riddle · **To what, where:** riddles

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, troll), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg5615:27:80
# text = There was nothing else to be done than to try to answer the troll’s riddles.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
4	else	else	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	troll	troll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	riddles	riddle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive · passive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **try** | to-infinitive | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **answer** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | nothing *not said here* | the troll's riddles |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent riddle=Eventuality |
| 5 | **riddle** |  | the troll |  |  |  |  |  | nom riddle «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 79](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/27/79/)
- next →: [sentence 81](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/27/81/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/27/)