---
title: But before he had spoken, the King had turned the next page, and the… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But before he had spoken, the King had turned the next page, and there was a shining bird complete and beautiful in every blue feather of him. Who acts: Lionel, King. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/1/148/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 1, sentence 148

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But before he had spoken, the King had turned the next page, and there was a shining bird complete and beautiful in every blue feather of him.

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**Who acts:** Lionel, King · **What happens:** speak, turn, shine, be · **To what, where:** next page · **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, King), 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:pg23661:1:148
# text = But before he had spoken, the King had turned the next page, and there was a shining bird complete and beautiful in every blue feather of him.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	page	page	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	17	expl	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	amod	_	_
20	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
21	complete	complete	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	conj	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	27	det	_	_
26	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past · perfect | Lionel |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **turn** | past · perfect | the King | the next page |  |  |  | in every blue feather of Lionel | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: agent=Agent page=Patient in feather=Topic |
| 3 | **shine** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  | complete *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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