---
title: We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. Who acts: We, ocean. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, sentence 15

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We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean.

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**Who acts:** We, ocean · **What happens:** be, grow, snuff up, breeze · **To what, where:** salt breeze, breath

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, ocean), 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:pg976:20:15
# text = We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean.
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	apt	apt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	faint	faint	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	det	_	_
11	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	snuff	snuff	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	salt	salt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	breeze	breeze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	ocean	ocean	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | We |  |  |  |  | apt *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **grow** | to-infinitive | We *not said here* |  |  |  |  | faint *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **snuff up** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | we | the salt breeze of the ocean |  | every breath |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **breeze** |  | the ocean |  |  |  |  |  | nom breeze «phenomenon intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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