---
title: Mother Ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disc… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mother Ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand. Who acts: Ceres, Mother, torch. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 5, sentence 41

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Mother Ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand.

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**Who acts:** Ceres, Mother, torch · **What happens:** return, desert, sit, burn · **To what, where:** Mother, doorstep, hand

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pomegranate Seeds., part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ceres, Mother, torch), 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:pg976:24:41
# text = Mother Ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand.
1	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
2	Ceres	Ceres	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	returned	return	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	1	acl:relcl	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	deserted	desert	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	home	home	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
13	disconsolately	disconsolately	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	doorstep	doorstep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	torch	torch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past · perfect | Ceres | Mother *not said here* | mother |  |  |  | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent mother=Theme to she=Destination |
| 2 | **desert** | past | Mother |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn leave-51.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sit** | past · progressive | Mother *not said here* |  |  | the doorstep |  | disconsolately *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on doorstep=Location |
| 4 | **burn** | gerund | mother's torch |  |  | mother's hand |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in hand=Location |

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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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