---
title: It was useless to assert his innocence; he was dismissed without cer… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was useless to assert his innocence; he was dismissed without ceremony. Who acts: It. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/14/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/) / 14

# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was useless to assert his innocence; he was dismissed without ceremony.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** be, assert, dismiss · **To what, where:** innocence, King

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:50:14
# text = It was useless to assert his innocence; he was dismissed without ceremony.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	assert	assert	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	innocence	innocence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	dismissed	dismiss	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
12	without	without	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	ceremony	ceremony	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | It |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **assert** | to-infinitive |  | King's innocence |  |  |  |  | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent innocence=Theme |
| 3 | **dismiss** | past · passive |  | King |  |  |  | without ceremony | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/15/)
- ↑ back to [The White Snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/50/)