---
title: And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause. Who acts: comrades. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 4, 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/pg976/18/85/)

<!-- 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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/18/) / 85

# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 4, sentence 85

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** comrades · **What happens:** not seem, know, want, be · **To what, where:** other cause · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (comrades), 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:pg976:18:85
# text = And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	seem	seem	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	18	cc	_	_
14	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	merely	merely	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	_
22	from	from	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	25	det	_	_
24	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **seem** | past · do-support | comrades *= comrade* |  |  |  | yet |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **know** | to-infinitive | comrades *= comrade* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **want** | past | comrades *= comrade* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | comrades *= comrade* |  |  |  |  | hungry, merely *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | comrades *= comrade* *not said here* |  |  | some other cause |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 84](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/18/84/)
- next →: [sentence 86](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/18/86/)
- ↑ back to [Circe's Palace., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/18/)