---
title: She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery. — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery. Who acts: child. 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 21

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She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery.

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**Who acts:** child · **What happens:** turn, ask, explain · **To what, where:** Mother, child, mystery

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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 (child), 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:pg976:23:21
# text = She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Mother	Mother	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	Ceres	Ceres	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mystery	mystery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past | child |  | Mother |  | now |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to mother=Result |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | child *not said here* |  | child |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **explain** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | child *not said here* | the mystery |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mystery=Topic |

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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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