---
title: He shut a little kiss in each hand before he let them go. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He shut a little kiss in each hand before he let them go. Who acts: Nigel, kisses. 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 85

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He shut a little kiss in each hand before he let them go.

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**Who acts:** Nigel, kisses · **What happens:** shut, let, go · **To what, where:** little kiss, hand, kisses

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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, kisses), 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:pg23661:10:85
# text = He shut a little kiss in each hand before he let them go.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	shut	shut	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	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	kiss	kiss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	det	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
9	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shut** | past | Nigel | a little kiss |  | each hand |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent kiss=Patient |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | Nigel | kisses *= kiss* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | infinitive | kisses *= kiss* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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