---
title: Was there nothing he could say to get rid of the monster? — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Was there nothing he could say to get rid of the monster? Who acts: Stan. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 191

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Was there nothing he could say to get rid of the monster?

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**Who acts:** Stan · **What happens:** be, say, get · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Stan), 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:pg641:13:191
# text = Was there nothing he could say to get rid of the monster?
1	Was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	_
2	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	advcl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	acl:relcl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	rid	rid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	monster	monster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | there *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | Stan |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **get** | to-infinitive | Stan *not said here* |  |  |  |  | rid *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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