---
title: The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short--began presently to grow up. Who acts: baby, father. 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/pg23661/12/172/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 172

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The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short--began presently to grow up.

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**Who acts:** baby, father · **What happens:** name, call, begin, grow up · **To what, where:** father, Johnnie · **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 (baby, father), 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:pg23661:12:172
# text = The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short--began presently to grow up.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	named	name	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
5	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	Johnnie	Johnnie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
21	up	up	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **name** | participle | the baby *not said here* | John's father |  |  |  |  | vn appoint-29.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **call** | past | John's father *not said here* |  | Johnnie |  |  | short *property* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent johnnie=Recipient |
| 3 | **begin** | past | the baby |  |  |  |  | presently *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **grow up** | to-infinitive | the baby *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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