---
title: If he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some des… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect. Who acts: island, abominable aspect. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., part 2,
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/92/)

<!-- 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/) / 92

# Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 2, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** island, abominable aspect · **What happens:** suffer, exist, be, torment · **To what, where:** monster, all, desert island, nobody

<!-- .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 (island, abominable aspect), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg976:250`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg976:4:92
# text = If he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Sub|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	suffered	suffer	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	advcl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	exist	exist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	obl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
11	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	cop	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	det	_	_
16	desert	desert	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	duskiness	duskiness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	26	det	_	_
25	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	cavern	cavern	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
28	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	33	advmod	_	_
29	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	33	nsubj:pass	_	_
30	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
31	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	33	advmod	_	_
32	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	aux:pass	_	_
33	tormented	torment	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	acl:relcl	_	_
34	by	by	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
35	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	37	nmod:poss	_	_
36	abominable	abominable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	amod	_	_
37	aspect	aspect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suffer** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · passive |  | monster |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **exist** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | all |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at all=Location |
| 3 | **is** | should · perfect | island |  |  | some desert island or the duskiness of some deep cavern |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **torment** | would · passive | monster's abominable aspect | nobody |  |  | ever |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus subject=Experiencer |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 91](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/91/)
- next →: [sentence 93](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/93/)
- ↑ back to [The Minotaur., part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg976/4/)