---
title: When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very di… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it. Who acts: quality. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 4, sentence 99

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When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it.

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**Who acts:** quality · **What happens:** fasten, be, get · **To what, where:** quality

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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 (quality), 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:pg976:18:99
# text = When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	once	once	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	fastens	fasten	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
5	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	into	into	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	character	character	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	expl	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	very	very	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
16	getting	get	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
17	rid	rid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fasten** | present | quality | quality |  |  |  | into a person's character | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent itself=Patient into character=Co-Patient |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | difficult *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **get** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | rid *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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