---
title: And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that t… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like. Who acts: strangers. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 3, sentence 15

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And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like.

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**Who acts:** strangers · **What happens:** seem, taste, not like · **To what, where:** something

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (strangers), 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:pg976:17:15
# text = And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	10	advmod	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	taste	taste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obj	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	obj	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | the strangers |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **taste** | to-infinitive | the strangers *not said here* | something |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme something=Attribute |
| 3 | **not** **like** | past · do-support | strangers *= stranger* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot that=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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