---
title: Then the messengers came home again, not having been able to find a… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the messengers came home again, not having been able to find a queen. Who acts: messengers. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Allerleirauh; Or, the Many-furred Creature, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Allerleirauh; Or, the Many-furred Creature, sentence 9

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Then the messengers came home again, not having been able to find a queen.

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**Who acts:** messengers · **What happens:** come, have, not be, find · **To what, where:** queen

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Allerleirauh; Or, the Many-furred Creature. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (messengers), 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:pg7277:42:9
# text = Then the messengers came home again, not having been able to find a queen.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	messengers	messenger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	home	home	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	again	again	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
9	having	have	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	nsubj	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	cop	_	_
11	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the messengers |  |  |  | then; again | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **find** | to-infinitive |  | a queen |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent queen=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 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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