---
title: If it were not for that, we should look like bunches of uprooted sea… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If it were not for that, we should look like bunches of uprooted seaweed dried in the sun. Who acts: break, we. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, 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/pg976/20/17/)

<!-- 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 Pomegranate Seeds., part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/) / 17

# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If it were not for that, we should look like bunches of uprooted seaweed dried in the sun.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** break, we · **What happens:** not be, look, uproot, dry · **To what, where:** uprooted seaweed, sun.

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (break, we), 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:pg976:20:17
# text = If it were not for that, we should look like bunches of uprooted seaweed dried in the sun.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	bunches	bunch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	uprooted	uproot	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	amod	_	_
15	seaweed	seaweed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	dried	dry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	sun.	sun.	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | break |  |  |  |  | for that | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | should | we |  |  |  |  | like bunches of uprooted seaweed | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **uproot** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **dry** | participle |  | uprooted seaweed *not said here* |  | the sun. |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/18/)
- ↑ back to [The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/)