---
title: In vain did his anxious followers seek for him, he was nowhere to be… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain did his anxious followers seek for him, he was nowhere to be found. Who acts: vain, anxious followers. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, sentence 89

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In vain did his anxious followers seek for him, he was nowhere to be found.

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**Who acts:** vain, anxious followers · **What happens:** do, seek, find · **To what, where:** stream

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (vain, anxious followers), 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:pg640:22:89
# text = In vain did his anxious followers seek for him, he was nowhere to be found.
1	In	in	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	anxious	anxious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	followers	follower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	seek	seek	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
13	nowhere	nowhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | vain |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **seek** | present | stream's anxious followers |  |  |  |  | for stream | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for he=Theme |
| 3 | **find** | past · passive |  | stream |  |  |  | nowhere *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic |

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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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