---
title: Had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white ashes. Who acts: you. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 5, sentence 45

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Had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white ashes.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** act, be · **To what, where:** instant

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., 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 (you), 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:pg976:29:45
# text = Had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white ashes.
1	Had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	acted	act	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	fairly	fairly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
8	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
9	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
13	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	cinder	cinder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	handful	handful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	ashes	ash	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **act** | past · perfect | you |  |  |  |  | fairly *property* | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | would · perfect | you |  |  | this instant and a black cinder or a handful of white ashes |  |  | tree rules |

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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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