---
title: "The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and the… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters. Who acts: roads. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 1, sentence 69

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"The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters.

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**Who acts:** roads · **What happens:** be, quoth, infest · **To what, where:** venerable king, roads

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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 (roads), 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:pg976:3:69
# text = "The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	roads	road	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	_
11	quoth	quoth	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	venerable	venerable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
20	terribly	terribly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	infested	infest	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	monsters	monster	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the roads |  |  |  |  | by land; bad *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **quoth** | infinitive | the roads *not said here* | the venerable king |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **infest** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | roads *= road* |  |  |  | with robbers and monsters; terribly *property* | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with robber=Theme |

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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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