---
title: "Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. Who acts: thing, Eustace, little edifice. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Wayside. Introductory., 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/pg976/2/15/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Wayside. Introductory.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/2/) / 15

# Tanglewood Tales, The Wayside. Introductory., sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** thing, Eustace, little edifice · **What happens:** look, say, seem, be · **To what, where:** work · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Wayside. Introductory.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thing, Eustace, little edifice), 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:pg976:2:15
# text = "Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	looks	look	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	edifice	edifice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** *in a quote* | present | thing |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Eustace |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seem** *in a quote* | present | this little edifice |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | this little edifice *not said here* | the work |  |  |  | of magic | 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 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/2/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/2/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Wayside. Introductory.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/2/)