---
title: Either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs I shall try m… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs I shall try my best to struggle across the stream." Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 1, sentence 52

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Either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs I shall try my best to struggle across the stream."

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** take, try, struggle · **To what, where:** me, back, best, stream

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg976:25:52
# text = Either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs I shall try my best to struggle across the stream."
1	Either	either	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc:preconj	_	_
2	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
11	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	limbs	limb	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	16	obj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	struggle	struggle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
21	across	across	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	stream	stream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | imperative | you *not said here* | me |  | your back |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme on back=Destination |
| 2 | **try** | shall | I | my best |  |  |  | with my poor old limbs | tree rules |
| 3 | **struggle** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  | the stream |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=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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