---
title: In vain the Prince rushed to their assistance and strove to undo the… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain the Prince rushed to their assistance and strove to undo the cord. Who acts: men. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, sentence 5

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In vain the Prince rushed to their assistance and strove to undo the cord.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** rush, strive, undo, assist · **To what, where:** cord

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), 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:pg640:17:5
# text = In vain the Prince rushed to their assistance and strove to undo the cord.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
5	rushed	rush	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	assistance	assistance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	strove	strive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	undo	undo	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	cord	cord	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rush** | past |  |  |  |  |  | in the vain Prince; to men's assistance *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to assistance=Result |
| 2 | **strive** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **undo** | to-infinitive |  | the cord |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cord=Patient |
| 4 | **assist** |  | men *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | nom assistance «act transitive»: poss=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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