---
title: You had only to throw them out into a field if you wanted it plowed. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: You had only to throw them out into a field if you wanted it plowed. Who acts: You, field. 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 65

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You had only to throw them out into a field if you wanted it plowed.

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**Who acts:** You, field · **What happens:** have, throw out, want, plow · **To what, where:** things, field

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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 (You, field), 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:pg23661:11:65
# text = You had only to throw them out into a field if you wanted it plowed.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	throw	throw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	out	out	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
8	into	into	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	plowed	plow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | You |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **throw out** | to-infinitive | You *not said here* | things *= thing* |  |  |  | into a field *result* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Causer they=Theme into field=Result |
| 3 | **want** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | you | field |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **plow** *not said to happen* | participle | field *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_instr-10.4.2-1 «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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