---
title: So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away w… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away with all his might to keep the baby quiet. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/130/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/) / 130

# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 130

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away with all his might to keep the baby quiet.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** go, be, purr away, keep · **To what, where:** blacksmith, baby quiet

<!-- .vabout -->
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.

<!-- .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:pg23661:12:130
# text = So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away with all his might to keep the baby quiet.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	down	down	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	blacksmith	blacksmith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
12	purring	purr	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	away	away	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
15	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	19	det:predet	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
17	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	quiet	quiet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past |  | the blacksmith |  |  |  | down *property* | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location blacksmith=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | the dragon |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **purr away** | gerund | the dragon *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **keep** | might | the dragon *not said here* | the baby quiet |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent quiet=Theme |

<!-- .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 129](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/129/)
- next →: [sentence 131](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/131/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/)