---
title: And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head,… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week. Who acts: wife, things. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/171/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 171

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And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week.

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**Who acts:** wife, things · **What happens:** use, provide, grow · **To what, where:** teas, ninepence

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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 (wife, things), 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:pg23661:12:171
# text = And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	blacksmith	blacksmith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	's	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	provide	provide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	teas	tea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	ninepence	ninepence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	altogether	altogether	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
19	brighter	bright	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	amod	_	_
20	week	week	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	week	week	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | the blacksmith's wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **provide** | to-infinitive | the blacksmith's wife *not said here* | teas |  | ninepence |  | a head *obl:unmarked* | vn ensure-99 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition tea=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past | altogether things |  |  |  | week |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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