---
title: Ah, the best of men are tangled-- Sometime tangled in the tresses Of… — Legends of the Northwest · tree and pragmatics
description: Ah, the best of men are tangled-- Sometime tangled in the tresses Of a fair and crafty woman. A sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 1, sentence 58

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Ah, the best of men are tangled-- Sometime tangled in the tresses Of a fair and crafty woman.

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**What happens:** tangle · **To what, where:** best men, tresses

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg8122:18:58
# text = Ah, the best of men are tangled-- Sometime tangled in the tresses Of a fair and crafty woman.
1	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	tangled	tangle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	Sometime	sometime	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	11	advmod	_	_
11	tangled	tangle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	tresses	tress	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
15	Of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
17	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	crafty	crafty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	_
20	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tangle** | present · passive |  | best men |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tangle** | participle |  |  |  | the tresses of a fair woman |  | sometime *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 of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, Project Gutenberg book 8122 (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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