---
title: "After a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "I might make s… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "After a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "I might make shift to hobble along with a stick. Who acts: thrust, Cadmus, shift. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"After a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "I might make shift to hobble along with a stick.

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**Who acts:** thrust, Cadmus, shift · **What happens:** be, say, make, hobble · **To what, where:** shift · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (thrust, Cadmus, shift), 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:pg976:11:58
# text = "After a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "I might make shift to hobble along with a stick.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	After	after	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
9	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	mournfully	mournfully	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
21	shift	shift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	hobble	hobble	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	_
24	along	along	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | day | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | thrust |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **make** *in a quote* | might | Cadmus | shift |  |  |  | mournfully *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **hobble** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | shift *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with a stick; along *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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