---
title: Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might a… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too." Who acts: Mother Earth. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pygmies., part 1, sentence 53

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Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."

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**Who acts:** Mother Earth · **What happens:** have, not be, be · **To what, where:** ourselves, Giants

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., 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 (Mother Earth), 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:pg976:7:53
# text = Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
4	Mother	Mother	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	Earth	Earth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
8	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	cop	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	kind	kind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	ourselves	ourselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
15	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
16	all	all	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
19	Giants	Giant	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	1	nsubj	_	_
20	too	too	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Mother Earth *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** | participle | Mother Earth *not said here* |  | ourselves |  |  | kind *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | might · perfect | Mother Earth | Giants |  |  |  | all *property* | tree rules |

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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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