---
title: But as he spoke the beautiful Butterfly fluttered its many-colored w… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But as he spoke the beautiful Butterfly fluttered its many-colored wings on the yellow old page of the book, and flew up and out of the window. Who acts: Lionel. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 1, sentence 146

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But as he spoke the beautiful Butterfly fluttered its many-colored wings on the yellow old page of the book, and flew up and out of the window.

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**Who acts:** Lionel · **What happens:** speak, flutter, color, fly up, page · **To what, where:** beautiful Butterfly, colored wings, yellow old page, book · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, 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 (Lionel), 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:pg23661:1:146
# text = But as he spoke the beautiful Butterfly fluttered its many-colored wings on the yellow old page of the book, and flew up and out of the window.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	Butterfly	Butterfly	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	fluttered	flutter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
10	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	colored	color	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	amod	_	_
13	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	page	page	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
25	up	up	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
27	out	out	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Lionel | the beautiful Butterfly |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **flutter** | past |  | Butterfly's colored wings |  | the yellow old page of the book |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location wing=Theme |
| 3 | **color** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn coloring-24 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **fly up** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **page** |  |  | the book |  |  |  |  | nom page «communication transitive»: of=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.

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**Text:** «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Project Gutenberg book 23661 (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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