---
title: But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more. Who acts: gallons. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 3, 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/pg976/17/27/)

<!-- 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/17/) / 27

# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 3, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** gallons · **What happens:** begin, give over, hold · **To what, where:** length, mere incapacity

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (gallons), 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:pg976:17:27
# text = But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	over	over	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	incapacity	incapacity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	_
15	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | gallons *= gallon* |  |  | length |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **give over** | to-infinitive | gallons *= gallon* *not said here* | mere incapacity |  |  |  | over *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent incapacity=Theme |
| 3 | **hold** | to-infinitive | gallons *= gallon* *not said here* | mere incapacity *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent more=Theme |

<!-- .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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/17/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/17/28/)
- ↑ back to [Circe's Palace., part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/17/)