---
title: To his father and brothers, however, he gave no account of his attem… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: To his father and brothers, however, he gave no account of his attempt, except that it had been a failure. Who acts: thing, account. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 35

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To his father and brothers, however, he gave no account of his attempt, except that it had been a failure.

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**Who acts:** thing, account · **What happens:** give, be, account, attempt · **To what, where:** account, father, attempt

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thing, account), 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:pg641:24:35
# text = To his father and brothers, however, he gave no account of his attempt, except that it had been a failure.
1	To	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	however	however	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	12	det	_	_
12	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	attempt	attempt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
17	except	except	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
21	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	cop	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	failure	failure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | thing | no account of thing's attempt | thing's father and brothers |  |  | however *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent account=Theme to father=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** | past · perfect | account |  |  |  |  | except a failure | tree rules |
| 3 | **account** |  |  | thing's attempt |  |  |  |  | nom account «communication transitive»: of=patient |
| 4 | **attempt** |  | thing |  |  |  |  |  | nom attempt «act transitive»: 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.

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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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