---
title: At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition. — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition. Who acts: workmen. 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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# Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4, sentence 74

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At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition.

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**Who acts:** workmen · **What happens:** be, show · **To what, where:** quarrelsome disposition

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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 (workmen), 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:pg976:13:74
# text = At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	workmen	workman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	quarrelsome	quarrelsome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	disposition	disposition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **show** | past | the workmen | a quarrelsome disposition |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent disposition=Recipient |

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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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