---
title: "What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus. — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus. Who acts: I. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3, 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/pg976/12/32/)

<!-- 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/12/) / 32

# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** do, ask · **To what, where:** Cadmus · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg976:12:32
# text = "What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Cadmus	Cadmus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | shall | I |  |  |  | then |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Cadmus |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent cadmus=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/12/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/12/33/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon's Teeth., part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/12/)