---
title: The tailor could do nothing but hold on tight with both hands to the… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The tailor could do nothing but hold on tight with both hands to the stag’s horns and resign himself to his fate. Who acts: tailor. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Crystal Coffin, sentence 23

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The tailor could do nothing but hold on tight with both hands to the stag’s horns and resign himself to his fate.

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**Who acts:** tailor · **What happens:** do, hold on, resign, fate · **To what, where:** nothing, tailor, fate

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tailor), 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:pg7277:45:23
# text = The tailor could do nothing but hold on tight with both hands to the stag’s horns and resign himself to his fate.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tailor	tailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	hold	hold	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	tight	tight	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
12	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	stag	stag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	horns	horn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	resign	resign	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
20	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | could | the tailor | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 2 | **hold on** | present | the tailor *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with both hands; to the stag's horns; tight *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **resign** | infinitive | the tailor *not said here* | tailor | tailor's fate |  |  |  | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent himself=Theme to fate=Recipient |
| 4 | **fate** |  | tailor |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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