---
title: But pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone a… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play. Who acts: Nor, affair, foregone adventures, mere boy. 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 78

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But pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play.

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**Who acts:** Nor, affair, foregone adventures, mere boy · **What happens:** undertake, make, forego, seem, adventure, play · **To what, where:** affair

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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 (Nor, affair, foregone adventures, mere boy), 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:pg976:4:78
# text = But pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	undertook	undertake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	affair	affair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	14	det:predet	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	foregone	forego	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	amod	_	_
14	adventures	adventure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	seem	seem	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
16	like	like	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	's	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	play	play	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **undertake** | past | Nor | a affair |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent affair=Eventuality |
| 2 | **make** | past | a affair |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 3 | **forego** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn neglect-75.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **seem** | present | Nor's foregone adventures |  |  |  |  | like mere boy's play | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **adventure** |  | Nor |  |  |  |  |  | nom adventure «act transitive»: poss=agent |
| 6 | **play** |  | mere boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom play «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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