---
title: Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled, and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. Who acts: Proserpina. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, wi
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/42/)

<!-- 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/) / 42

# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled, and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Proserpina · **What happens:** hold up, seize, pull, be, loosen · **To what, where:** apron, large shrub, soil

<!-- .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 (Proserpina), 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:pg976:20:42
# text = Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled, and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots.
1	Holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
2	up	up	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	apron	apron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
5	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	left	left	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
13	Proserpina	Proserpina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	shrub	shrub	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	pulled	pull	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	pulled	pull	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	_
30	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
32	to	to	PART	TO	_	33	mark	_	_
33	loosen	loosen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	31	xcomp	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obj	_	_
36	about	about	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
37	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	38	nmod:poss	_	_
38	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold up** | gerund | Proserpina *not said here* | Mother's apron |  |  |  |  | vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot apron=Theme |
| 2 | **seize** | past | Proserpina | the large shrub |  |  |  | with the other | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shrub=Theme |
| 3 | **pull** | past | Proserpina *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn slide-11.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **pull** | past | Proserpina *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn slide-11.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is** | past | Proserpina *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able, hardly *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **loosen** | to-infinitive | Proserpina *not said here* | the soil |  |  |  | about shrub's roots | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent soil=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 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/)