---
title: But in vain he examined all the hedges and all the thickets; in vain… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But in vain he examined all the hedges and all the thickets; in vain he questioned everyone he met along the road. Who acts: bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, sentence 53

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But in vain he examined all the hedges and all the thickets; in vain he questioned everyone he met along the road.

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**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** examine, question, meet · **To what, where:** hedges, vain, everyone · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird), 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:pg640:11:53
# text = But in vain he examined all the hedges and all the thickets; in vain he questioned everyone he met along the road.
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	examined	examine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hedges	hedge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	thickets	thicket	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	vain	vain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	questioned	question	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	everyone	everyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	17	obj	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
21	along	along	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **examine** | past | bird | all hedges and all thickets |  | vain |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hedge=Theme |
| 2 | **question** *speech: other* | past | bird | everyone |  | vain |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **meet** | past | bird |  |  |  |  | along the road | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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