---
title: He'll have to be clever enough to sail a ship through the Nine Whirl… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He'll have to be clever enough to sail a ship through the Nine Whirlpools that spin around the island, and to kill the dragon and the griffin. Who acts: plan, Nine Whirlpools. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/10/19/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 10, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He'll have to be clever enough to sail a ship through the Nine Whirlpools that spin around the island, and to kill the dragon and the griffin.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** plan, Nine Whirlpools · **What happens:** have, be, sail, spin, kill · **To what, where:** ship, Nine Whirlpools, island, 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, Nine Whirlpools), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:10:19
# text = He'll have to be clever enough to sail a ship through the Nine Whirlpools that spin around the island, and to kill the dragon and the griffin.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
7	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	sail	sail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	through	through	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	Nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	Whirlpools	whirlpool	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	spin	spin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
18	around	around	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	griffin	griffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | future | plan |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | to-infinitive | plan *not said here* |  |  |  |  | clever, enough *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **sail** | to-infinitive | plan *not said here* | a ship |  | the Nine Whirlpools |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent ship=Theme through whirlpool=Trajectory |
| 4 | **spin** | present | the Nine Whirlpools |  |  | the island |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme around island=Trajectory |
| 5 | **kill** | to-infinitive | plan *not said here* | the dragon and the griffin |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dragon=Theme |

<!-- .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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