---
title: You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard. Who acts: children. 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 59

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You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** laugh, see, dodge, swing · **To what, where:** You, children, beard

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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 (children), 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:pg976:7:59
# text = You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	dodging	dodge	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	xcomp	_	_
10	in	in	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	out	out	ADV	RB	_	10	conj	_	_
13	among	among	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	swinging	swing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
19	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | would · perfect · passive |  | You |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive |  | the children |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **dodge** | gerund | the children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | among Earth's hair | vn avoid-52 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **swing** | gerund | the children *not said here* |  |  | Earth's beard |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme from beard=Trajectory |

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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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