---
title: I always liked it better than the dragon: It wasn't so hot-tempered." — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: I always liked it better than the dragon: It wasn't so hot-tempered." Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 11, sentence 50

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I always liked it better than the dragon: It wasn't so hot-tempered."

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** like, not temper · **To what, where:** eagle

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg23661:11:50
# text = I always liked it better than the dragon: It wasn't so hot-tempered."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
10	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	tempered	temper	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** | past | I | eagle |  |  |  | always, well *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot it=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **temper** | past · passive |  | eagle |  |  |  |  | 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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