---
title: But, before setting out, they all helped Phoenix to build a habitati… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But, before setting out, they all helped Phoenix to build a habitation. Who acts: Cadmus, Phoenix. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/11/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Tanglewood Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/) / [The Dragon's Teeth., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/11/) / 15

# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But, before setting out, they all helped Phoenix to build a habitation.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Cadmus, Phoenix · **What happens:** set out, help, build · **To what, where:** Phoenix, habitation

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cadmus, Phoenix), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg976:11:15
# text = But, before setting out, they all helped Phoenix to build a habitation.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
4	setting	set	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	_
9	helped	help	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Phoenix	Phoenix	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	build	build	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	habitation	habitation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set out** | gerund | Cadmus *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **help** | past | Cadmus | Phoenix |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent phoenix=Beneficiary clause=Theme |
| 3 | **build** | to-infinitive | Phoenix *not said here* | a habitation |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset habitation=Product |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/11/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/11/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon's Teeth., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/11/)