---
title: And he said to the skipper, his uncle: "What light is that?" — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And he said to the skipper, his uncle: "What light is that?" Who acts: boy, light. 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 57

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And he said to the skipper, his uncle: "What light is that?"

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**Who acts:** boy, light · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** skipper · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (boy, light), 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:pg23661:10:57
# text = And he said to the skipper, his uncle: "What light is that?"
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	skipper	skipper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	ccomp	_	_
13	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | boy |  | the skipper and boy's uncle |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to skipper=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | light |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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