---
title: He engaged a competent dragon to look after her, and also a respecta… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He engaged a competent dragon to look after her, and also a respectable griffin whose birth and upbringing he knew all about. Who acts: plan, birth. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/10/17/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 10, sentence 17

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He engaged a competent dragon to look after her, and also a respectable griffin whose birth and upbringing he knew all about.

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**Who acts:** plan, birth · **What happens:** engage, look, know · **To what, where:** competent dragon

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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 (plan, birth), 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:pg23661:10:17
# text = He engaged a competent dragon to look after her, and also a respectable griffin whose birth and upbringing he knew all about.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	engaged	engage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	competent	competent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
8	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	also	also	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	respectable	respectable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	griffin	griffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	_
16	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	birth	birth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	upbringing	upbringing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
22	all	all	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	about	about	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **engage** | past | plan | a competent dragon |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dragon=Patient |
| 2 | **look** | to-infinitive | plan *not said here* |  |  |  | after dragon |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **know** | past | birth and upbringing |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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