---
title: The terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than t… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. Who acts: terrified mariners. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 2, 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/pg976/16/33/)

<!-- 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/) / [Circe's Palace., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/16/) / 33

# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 2, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** terrified mariners · **What happens:** start back, expect, tear, devour · **To what, where:** better fate, pieces

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., 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 (terrified mariners), 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:pg976:16:33
# text = The terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	terrified	terrified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	mariners	mariner	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	expecting	expect	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
8	no	no	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	amod	_	_
10	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	advcl	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	devoured	devour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start back** | past | the terrified mariners |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **expect** | gerund | the terrified mariners *not said here* | better fate |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fate=Theme |
| 3 | **tear** | to-infinitive · passive | the terrified mariners *not said here* |  |  | pieces |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: to piece=Destination |
| 4 | **devour** | participle | the terrified mariners *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/16/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/16/34/)
- ↑ back to [Circe's Palace., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/16/)