---
title: This was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: This was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents. Who acts: This, you, three boys. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/10/68/)

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, sentence 68

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This was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents.

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**Who acts:** This, you, three boys · **What happens:** be, think, carry · **To what, where:** mournful story, parents · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (This, you, three boys), 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:pg976:10:68
# text = This was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	mournful	mournful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
11	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
19	home	home	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | This | a mournful story |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | may | you |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **carry** | to-infinitive | the three boys |  | boys's parents |  |  | home *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent to parent=Destination |

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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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