---
title: The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash. Who acts: beasts, first thing, fountain. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Pala
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 2, sentence 40

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The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash.

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**Who acts:** beasts, first thing, fountain · **What happens:** see, be, gush up, fall back · **To what, where:** first thing, spacious hall, marble basin, thing

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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 (beasts, first thing, fountain), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg976:1175`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg976:16:40
# text = The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	spacious	spacious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	hall	hall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	fountain	fountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	gushing	gush	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	acl	_	_
22	up	up	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	_
23	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	ceiling	ceiling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	out	out	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	marble	marble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	_
30	basin	basin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	falling	fall	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	_
34	back	back	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
35	into	into	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
36	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obl	_	_
37	with	with	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
38	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
39	continual	continual	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	40	amod	_	_
40	plash	plash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | beasts *= beast* | the first thing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer that=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the first thing | a spacious hall and a fountain in the middle of middle |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **gush up** | gerund | a fountain in the middle of middle *not said here* |  |  | a marble basin |  | towards the ceiling | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme out basin=Location |
| 4 | **fall back** | gerund | a fountain in the middle of middle *not said here* |  |  | thing |  | with a continual plash | vn become-109.1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient into it=Result |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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