---
title: They had tried everything they could think of to bring this about, b… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: They had tried everything they could think of to bring this about, but without success. Who acts: inhabitants. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 8, sentence 82

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They had tried everything they could think of to bring this about, but without success.

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**Who acts:** inhabitants · **What happens:** try, think, bring · **To what, where:** everything, this · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (inhabitants), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:8:84
# text = They had tried everything they could think of to bring this about, but without success.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	3	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
11	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	obj	_	_
12	about	about	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	without	without	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	success	success	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past · perfect | inhabitants *= inhabitant* | everything |  |  |  | success *parataxis* | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=Eventuality |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | could | inhabitants *= inhabitant* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **bring** | to-infinitive |  | this |  |  |  | about *property* | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent this=Theme |

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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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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