---
title: His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy. Who acts: mother. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 1, sentence 23

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His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy.

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**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** stand, look on, see · **To what, where:** zealous efforts

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., 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 (mother), 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:pg976:3:23
# text = His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	smile	smile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
25	zealous	zealous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
28	puny	puny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
29	efforts	effort	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
32	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | wonder's mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **look on** | gerund | wonder's mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with a sad kind of a smile on mother's lips and mother's eyes | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | wonder's mother *not said here* | the zealous efforts of mother's little boy |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer effort=Stimulus |

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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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