---
title: There was no time, just then, to inquire what the Speaking Oak had s… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was no time, just then, to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said. Who acts: time, Speaking Oak. 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 79

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There was no time, just then, to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said.

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**Who acts:** time, Speaking Oak · **What happens:** be, inquire, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (time, Speaking Oak), 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:pg976:25:79
# text = There was no time, just then, to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	just	just	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	inquire	inquire	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	Speaking	Speaking	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	Oak	Oak	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | no time |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | then |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · perfect | the Speaking Oak |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=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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