---
title: Whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther. Who acts: brook, it, cow. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3, sentence 71

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Whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther.

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**Who acts:** brook, it, cow · **What happens:** be, not seem, travel · **To what, where:** oracular cow, great way

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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 (brook, it, cow), 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:pg976:12:71
# text = Whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther.
1	Whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	oracular	oracular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	advcl	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
9	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	seem	seem	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
16	reasonable	reasonable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	travel	travel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl:unmarked	_	_
24	farther	far	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | brook | the oracular cow or some other one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **seem** | past · do-support | it |  |  |  |  | reasonable *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **travel** | should | cow | a great way |  |  |  | far *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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