---
title: The dragon had probably heard the voices; for swift as lightning, hi… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The dragon had probably heard the voices; for swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. Who acts: tongue. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., part 5, with its dependency tree
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 5, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The dragon had probably heard the voices; for swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch.

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**Who acts:** tongue · **What happens:** hear, fork, come, hiss, dart · **To what, where:** dragon, trees, full forty feet, stretch

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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 (tongue), 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:pg976:29:98
# text = The dragon had probably heard the voices; for swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	probably	probably	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	voices	voice	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	swift	swift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
11	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	forked	fork	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
19	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	_
21	hissing	hiss	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	xcomp	_	_
22	among	among	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
25	again	again	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
27	darting	dart	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	conj	_	_
28	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
29	forty	forty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	30	nummod	_	_
30	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	_
31	at	at	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	stretch	stretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · perfect · passive |  | the dragon |  |  |  | probably *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **fork** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **come** | past | tongue |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **hiss** | gerund | tongue *not said here* |  |  | the trees | again |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among tree=Location |
| 5 | **dart** | gerund | tongue *not said here* | full forty feet |  | a stretch |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent foot=Theme at stretch=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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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