---
title: But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound. Who acts: strangers, sweet sound. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/16/44/)

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 2, sentence 44

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But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound.

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**Who acts:** strangers, sweet sound · **What happens:** have, look, draw off, attend · **To what, where:** attention

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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 (strangers, sweet sound), 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:pg976:16:44
# text = But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	closely	closely	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
13	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	attention	attention	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	drawn	draw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
20	off	off	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
23	very	very	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	agreeable	agreeable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	_
27	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the strangers |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **look** | to-infinitive | the strangers *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at this wonderful sight; closely *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at sight=Theme |
| 3 | **draw off** | past · passive | a sweet sound | strangers's attention |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme |
| 4 | **attend** |  | strangers *= stranger* |  |  |  |  |  | nom attention «cognition intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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