---
title: My dear mother (her name is Aethra) told me his story while I was ye… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: My dear mother (her name is Aethra) told me his story while I was yet a little child. Who acts: name, dear mother, I, mother. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 2, sentence 57

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My dear mother (her name is Aethra) told me his story while I was yet a little child.

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**Who acts:** name, dear mother, I, mother · **What happens:** be, tell, name · **To what, where:** Aethra, story, me, little child · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, dear mother, I, 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:pg976:4:57
# text = My dear mother (her name is Aethra) told me his story while I was yet a little child.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	Aethra	Aethra	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	8	punct	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
17	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | mother's name | Aethra |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | My dear mother | Theseus's story | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient story=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | past | I | a little child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **name** |  | mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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