---
title: And they had been saving up so long to buy him a crown, and everythi… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And they had been saving up so long to buy him a crown, and everything! Who acts: subjects. 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 169

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And they had been saving up so long to buy him a crown, and everything!

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**Who acts:** subjects · **What happens:** save up, buy · **To what, where:** crown, Lionel

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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 (subjects), 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:pg23661:1:169
# text = And they had been saving up so long to buy him a crown, and everything!
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux	_	_
5	saving	save	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	up	up	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	crown	crown	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **save up** | past · perfect · progressive | subjects *= subject* |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **buy** | to-infinitive | subjects *= subject* *not said here* | a crown | Lionel |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary crown=Theme |

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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:** «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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