---
title: As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. Who acts: I, truth. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pygmies., part 2, sentence 29

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As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky.

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**Who acts:** I, truth · **What happens:** tell, uphold · **To what, where:** you, sky · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., 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 (I, truth), 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:pg976:8:29
# text = As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
9	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	13	advmod	_	_
13	upheld	uphold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | I |  | you |  |  | ago *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **uphold** | past | truth | the sky |  |  |  | once *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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