---
title: It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the g… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms. Who acts: water, curious machinery. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 2, sentence 43

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It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms.

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**Who acts:** water, curious machinery · **What happens:** be, cause, gush, assume · **To what, where:** magic, gushing waterspout, forms

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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 (water, curious machinery), 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:pg976:16:43
# text = It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	either	either	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc:preconj	_	_
4	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	machinery	machinery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	caused	cause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	gushing	gush	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	amod	_	_
14	waterspout	waterspout	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	assume	assume	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	_
17	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	19	det:predet	_	_
18	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	forms	form	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | water | magic or some curious machinery |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cause** | past | some curious machinery | the gushing waterspout |  |  |  |  | vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition waterspout=Patient |
| 3 | **gush** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **assume** | to-infinitive | some curious machinery *not said here* | all forms |  |  |  |  | vn adopt-93.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent form=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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