---
title: They did search, of course discovering nothing, and the mystery was… — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: They did search, of course discovering nothing, and the mystery was still impenetrable. Who acts: absences, course, mystery. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains, A Historical Tale., part 3, sentence 149

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They did search, of course discovering nothing, and the mystery was still impenetrable.

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**Who acts:** absences, course, mystery · **What happens:** search, discover, be · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (absences, course, mystery), 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:pg74323:20:149
# text = They did search, of course discovering nothing, and the mystery was still impenetrable.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	search	search	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	discovering	discover	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	mystery	mystery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	still	still	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	impenetrable	impenetrable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **search** | past · do-support | absences *= absence* |  |  |  |  | of course | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **discover** | gerund | course *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | past | the mystery |  |  |  | still | impenetrable *property* | tree rules |

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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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