---
title: "This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. " — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. " Who acts: This, River Lethe. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2, 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/pg976/21/13/)

<!-- 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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/21/) / 13

# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** This, River Lethe · **What happens:** be, observe · **To what, where:** River Lethe, Pluto

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (This, River Lethe), 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:pg976:21:13
# text = "This is the River Lethe," observed King Pluto. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	River	River	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	Lethe	Lethe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
9	observed	observe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:desc	_	_
11	Pluto	Pluto	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | This | the River Lethe |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **observe** | past | the River Lethe | Pluto  King |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent pluto=Topic |

<!-- .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 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/21/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/21/14/)
- ↑ back to [The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/21/)