---
title: And while they settle their business together, we must inquire what… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And while they settle their business together, we must inquire what Proserpina had been doing ever since we saw her last. Who acts: cap, we, Proserpina. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/23/51/)

<!-- 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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/23/) / 51

# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4, sentence 51

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And while they settle their business together, we must inquire what Proserpina had been doing ever since we saw her last.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cap, we, Proserpina · **What happens:** settle, inquire, do, see · **To what, where:** business, last · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (cap, we, Proserpina), 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:pg976:23:51
# text = And while they settle their business together, we must inquire what Proserpina had been doing ever since we saw her last.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	settle	settle	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	together	together	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	inquire	inquire	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
13	Proserpina	Proserpina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	aux	_	_
16	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
17	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	advmod	_	_
18	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **settle** | present | cap | cap's business |  |  |  | together *property* | vn odge-46-1 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme business=Location |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | must | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | past · perfect · progressive | Proserpina |  |  |  | ever |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **see** | past | we | Proserpina's last |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer last=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 50](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/23/50/)
- next →: [sentence 52](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/23/52/)
- ↑ back to [The Pomegranate Seeds., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/23/)