---
title: You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked, thinking n… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder. Who acts: You, Queen. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cl
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder.

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**Who acts:** You, Queen · **What happens:** imagine, shriek, think, burn · **To what, where:** nothing, dear child

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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 (You, Queen), 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:pg976:23:17
# text = You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
10	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	Metanira	Metanira	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	flat	_	_
12	shrieked	shriek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
15	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	14	obj	_	_
16	less	less	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	amod	_	_
17	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
20	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	burned	burn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	advcl	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	cinder	cinder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **imagine** | may | You |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **shriek** | past | Queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | Queen *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot nothing=Theme |
| 4 | **burn** | would · passive |  | queen's dear child |  |  |  | to a cinder | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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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