---
title: How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a b… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow! Who acts: world, Cadmus. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/13/42/)

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4, sentence 42

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How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow!

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**Who acts:** world, Cadmus · **What happens:** be, get, sow · **To what, where:** bushel

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (world, Cadmus), 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:pg976:13:42
# text = How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow!
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	2	advmod	_	_
2	fortunate	fortunate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	conqueror	conqueror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	bushel	bushel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	's	's	PART	POS	_	19	case	_	_
21	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	sow	sow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | world |  |  |  |  | for a fortunate great conqueror | tree rules |
| 2 | **get** *a condition, not said to happen* | could | Cadmus | a bushel of the dragon's teeth |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bushel=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sow** | to-infinitive | Cadmus *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: 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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