---
title: She was a little stiff from standing still so long. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: She was a little stiff from standing still so long. Who acts: witch. 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 53

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She was a little stiff from standing still so long.

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**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** be, stand

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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 (witch), 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:pg23661:11:53
# text = She was a little stiff from standing still so long.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
5	stiff	stiff	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
8	still	still	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | witch |  |  |  |  | a little *obl:unmarked*; stiff *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stand** | gerund | witch *not said here* |  |  |  | still | long *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP 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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