---
title: "There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up. Who acts: dragon. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 118

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"There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up.

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**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** be, say, chain up · **To what, where:** Dragon · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dragon), 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:pg23661:12:118
# text = "There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	dungeon	dungeon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	've	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	chained	chain	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	ccomp	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | a dragon in my dungeon |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **chain up** *in a quote* | present · perfect | Dragon | Dragon |  |  |  |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |

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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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