---
title: Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firel… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. Who acts: Ceres, firelight. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, sentence 12

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Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead.

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**Who acts:** Ceres, firelight · **What happens:** sit, make, dance · **To what, where:** lap, shadow dance

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ceres, firelight), 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:pg976:23:12
# text = Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead.
1	Ceres	cere	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	hearth	hearth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	lap	lap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	firelight	firelight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	ceiling	ceiling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	overhead	overhead	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | Ceres |  |  | child's lap | before the hearth | with the child | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before hearth=Location |
| 2 | **make** | gerund | the firelight | firelight's shadow dance |  |  |  | upon the ceiling; overhead *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset dance=Product |
| 3 | **dance** |  | firelight |  |  |  |  |  | nom dance «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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