---
title: "O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing ba… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. " Who acts: Ceres. 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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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 2, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "

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**Who acts:** Ceres · **What happens:** say, toss back, look · **To what, where:** innocent sea nymphs, green ringlets, mother, face · **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 (Ceres), 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:pg976:21:58
# text = "O, no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	no	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	Ceres	Cere	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	innocent	innocent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	nymphs	nymph	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	tossing	toss	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
18	back	back	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
20	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	ringlets	ringlet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
25	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	in	in	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Ceres | the innocent sea nymphs |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nymph=Topic |
| 2 | **toss back** | gerund | Ceres *not said here* | nymphs's green ringlets |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ringlet=Patient |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | Ceres *not said here* | mother |  | the face |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme she=Attribute |

<!-- .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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