---
title: "Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto. " — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto. " Who acts: dog. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/21/1/)

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2, sentence 1

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"Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto. "

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**Who acts:** dog · **What happens:** bite, ask, shrink · **To what, where:** dog, Proserpina · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog), 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:pg976:21:1
# text = "Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	bite	bite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
10	Proserpina	Proserpina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	shrinking	shrink	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
13	closer	close	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	xcomp	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Pluto	Pluto	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bite** *in a quote* | future | the dog | the dog *= dog* |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the dog *not said here* |  | Proserpina |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent proserpina=Recipient |
| 3 | **shrink** | gerund | the dog *not said here* |  |  |  |  | close *property* | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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- ← previous: [The Pomegranate Seeds., part 1, 128](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/20/128/)
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