---
title: These rent and torn rocks could not fail to possess their legends. — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: These rent and torn rocks could not fail to possess their legends. Who acts: rent. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Legends and Tales., part 1, 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 1, sentence 136

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These rent and torn rocks could not fail to possess their legends.

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**Who acts:** rent · **What happens:** tear, not fail, possess · **To what, where:** legends

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Legends and Tales., 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 (rent), 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:pg74323:2:136
# text = These rent and torn rocks could not fail to possess their legends.
1	These	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	rent	rent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	amod	_	_
5	rocks	rock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	fail	fail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	possess	possess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	legends	legend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tear** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **fail** | could | this rent and torn rocks |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **possess** | to-infinitive | this rent and torn rocks *not said here* | rocks's legends |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot legend=Theme |

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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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