---
title: The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten. Who acts: gentle creature, Phoenix. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/10/54/)

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, sentence 54

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The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten.

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**Who acts:** gentle creature, Phoenix · **What happens:** doubt, be, prance · **To what, where:** gentle creature

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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 (gentle creature, Phoenix), 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:pg976:10:54
# text = The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
2	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	innocent	innocent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
5	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	doubt	doubt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	11	punct	_	_
18	pranced	prance	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
19	round	round	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	among	among	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
23	as	as	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	sportively	sportively	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
25	as	as	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	kitten	kitten	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **doubt** | could | the gentle creature |  |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn judgment-33.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | Phoenix |  |  |  |  | so *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **prance** | participle |  | the gentle creature *not said here* |  |  |  | among the children; as a kitten; round *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among child=Trajectory |

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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:** «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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