---
title: I can, but it's slow work, and it makes me very unhappy. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: I can, but it's slow work, and it makes me very unhappy. Who acts: I, griffin. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 10, sentence 103

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I can, but it's slow work, and it makes me very unhappy.

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**Who acts:** I, griffin · **What happens:** be, make · **To what, where:** slow work, me

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, griffin), 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:pg23661:10:103
# text = I can, but it's slow work, and it makes me very unhappy.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	very	very	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | can | I | slow work |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | present | griffin | me |  |  |  | unhappy *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.material V NP»: agent=Material i=Product |

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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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