---
title: But he blew in vain, for the poor soul was as dead as a door-nail. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he blew in vain, for the poor soul was as dead as a door-nail. Who acts: rogue, poor soul. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 1, sentence 91

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But he blew in vain, for the poor soul was as dead as a door-nail.

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**Who acts:** rogue, poor soul · **What happens:** blow, be · **To what, where:** vain

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, 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 (rogue, poor soul), 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:pg7277:26:91
# text = But he blew in vain, for the poor soul was as dead as a door-nail.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	as	as	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	advcl	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	nail	nail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **blow** | past | rogue |  |  | vain |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past | the poor soul |  |  |  |  | as a door nail; dead *property* | tree rules |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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