---
title: Sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had see… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen Europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away. Who acts: Cadmus, man, white bull. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, sentence 55

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Sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen Europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away.

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**Who acts:** Cadmus, man, white bull · **What happens:** be, hear, ask, see, carry away · **To what, where:** Cadmus, Europa

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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, man, white bull), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg976:829`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg976:11:55
# text = Sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen Europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away.
1	Sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	expl	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	cop	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	csubj	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	xcomp	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
12	passer	passer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	_
14	by	by	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
19	Europa	Europa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
23	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	bull	bull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	carried	carry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	_
29	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	_
30	away	away	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | sad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hear** | to-infinitive |  | Cadmus |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund | Cadmus *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of every passer; long *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent of passer=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **see** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | man | Europa |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer europa=Stimulus |
| 6 | **carry away** | past · perfect | the white bull | Europa |  |  |  | away *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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