---
title: He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly l… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig. Who acts: bull, bird. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, sentence 29

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He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig.

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**Who acts:** bull, bird · **What happens:** frisk, make, leap, expend, hop · **To what, where:** little effort, twig

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., 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 (bull, bird), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**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:pg976:10:29
# text = He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	frisked	frisk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	meadow	meadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
8	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
11	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
14	sprightly	sprightly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	leaps	leap	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	effort	effort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
21	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	expends	expend	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
25	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
26	hopping	hop	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	24	advcl	_	_
27	from	from	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	twig	twig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	twig	twig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frisk** | past | bull |  |  |  |  | about the meadow | vn investigate-35.4 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **make** | gerund | bull *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 3 | **leap** | present | bull *not said here* | little effort |  |  |  | sprightly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme effort=Trajectory |
| 4 | **expend** | present | a bird |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **hop** | gerund | a bird *not said here* |  |  | twig to twig |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from twig=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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