---
title: To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away. Who acts: it. 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 38

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To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away.

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**Who acts:** it · **What happens:** tell, seem, incline, turn round, run away · **To what, where:** truth, you, flower · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (it), 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:pg976:20:38
# text = To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	seem	seem	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
15	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	16	advmod	_	_
16	inclined	incline	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	round	round	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  | the truth | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient truth=Topic |
| 2 | **seem** | may | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **incline** | past · passive |  | flower |  |  |  | half *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **turn round** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | round *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **run away** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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