---
title: You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot brea… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder." Who acts: You, hot breath. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 4, sentence 67

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You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder."

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**Who acts:** You, hot breath · **What happens:** not imagine, shrivel · **To what, where:** mere twinkling, young man, black cinder

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., 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 (You, hot breath), 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:pg976:28:67
# text = You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder."
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	9	det:predet	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	twinkling	twinkling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	shrivels	shrivel	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	cinder	cinder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **imagine** | can | You |  |  | what mere twinkling of a eye |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **shrivel** | present | eyes's hot breath | a young man |  |  |  | into a black cinder *result* | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent man=Patient into cinder=Result |

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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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