---
title: He sat down to work out his sum with a piece of chalk on a smooth st… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He sat down to work out his sum with a piece of chalk on a smooth stone. Who acts: Nigel. 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 121

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He sat down to work out his sum with a piece of chalk on a smooth stone.

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**Who acts:** Nigel · **What happens:** sit down, work out, sum · **To what, where:** sum, smooth stone

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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 (Nigel), 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:pg23661:10:121
# text = He sat down to work out his sum with a piece of chalk on a smooth stone.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	sum	sum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	chalk	chalk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | Nigel |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **work out** | to-infinitive | Nigel *not said here* | Nigel's sum |  | a smooth stone |  | with a piece of chalk | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sum=Topic |
| 3 | **sum** |  | Nigel |  |  |  |  |  | nom sum «possession transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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