---
title: Then the skipper said: "All good things defend you, Nigel, from sail… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the skipper said: "All good things defend you, Nigel, from sailing near that light. Who acts: skipper, good things. 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 58

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Then the skipper said: "All good things defend you, Nigel, from sailing near that light.

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**Who acts:** skipper, good things · **What happens:** say, defend, sail · **To what, where:** you, light · **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 (skipper, good things), 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:pg23661:10:58
# text = Then the skipper said: "All good things defend you, Nigel, from sailing near that light.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	skipper	skipper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
6	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
8	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	defend	defend	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	Nigel	Nigel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
16	sailing	sail	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
17	near	near	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the skipper |  |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **defend** *in a quote* | present | all good things | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sail** *in a quote* | gerund | the skipper *not said here* |  |  | that light |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=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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