---
title: When the sea was smooth, ships came from far and wide, bringing peop… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: When the sea was smooth, ships came from far and wide, bringing people to hear the wonderful story. Who acts: sea, ships. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/11/68/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [Opening, part 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/11/) / 68

# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 11, sentence 68

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the sea was smooth, ships came from far and wide, bringing people to hear the wonderful story.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sea, ships · **What happens:** be, come, bring, hear · **To what, where:** people, wonderful story

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (sea, ships), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:11:68
# text = When the sea was smooth, ships came from far and wide, bringing people to hear the wonderful story.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	bringing	bring	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
15	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sea |  |  |  |  | smooth *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past | ships |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **bring** | gerund | ships *not said here* |  | people |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument people=Destination |
| 4 | **hear** | to-infinitive | ships *not said here* | the wonderful story |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/11/67/)
- next →: [sentence 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/11/69/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/11/)