---
title: In despair he wrung his hands and besought the Virgin to aid him in… — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: In despair he wrung his hands and besought the Virgin to aid him in his distress. Who acts: Loud. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Legends and Tales., part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains, Legends and Tales., part 10, sentence 114

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In despair he wrung his hands and besought the Virgin to aid him in his distress.

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**Who acts:** Loud · **What happens:** wring, beseech, aid, distress · **To what, where:** hands, despair, Virgin, Loud, distress

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Legends and Tales., part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Loud), 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:pg74323:11:114
# text = In despair he wrung his hands and besought the Virgin to aid him in his distress.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	wrung	wring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	besought	beseech	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Virgin	virgin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	aid	aid	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	distress	distress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wring** | past | Loud | Loud's hands |  | despair |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent hand=Theme in despair=Trajectory |
| 2 | **beseech** | past | Loud *not said here* | the Virgin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **aid** | to-infinitive | Loud *not said here* |  | Loud | Loud's distress |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **distress** |  | Loud |  |  |  |  |  | nom distress «feeling 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:** «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Project Gutenberg book 74323 (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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