---
title: As she said this, Medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she m… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: As she said this, Medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent Theseus, before his father's eyes. Who acts: woman, Medea. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/8/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Tanglewood Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/) / [The Minotaur., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/) / 8

# Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 2, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As she said this, Medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent Theseus, before his father's eyes.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** woman, Medea · **What happens:** say, smile, mean, poison · **To what, where:** this, face, nothing, poor innocent Theseus · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (woman, Medea), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg976:4:8
# text = As she said this, Medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent Theseus, before his father's eyes.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	Medea	Medea	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	smiled	smile	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
11	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	14	det:predet	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	smiling	smile	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
15	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obj	_	_
20	less	less	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	amod	_	_
21	than	than	ADP	IN	_	20	fixed	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	poison	poison	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	acl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
25	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
26	innocent	innocent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	Theseus	Theseus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
29	before	before	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
30	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	's	's	PART	POS	_	31	case	_	_
33	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | woman | this |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent this=Topic |
| 2 | **smile** | past | Medea |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **smile** | gerund | Medea | face |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent face=Topic |
| 4 | **mean** | past | Medea | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 5 | **poison** | to-infinitive | Medea *not said here* | the poor innocent Theseus |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent theseus=Patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Minotaur., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/)