---
title: And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: "Come in, dears." 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/187/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 187

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And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: "Come in, dears."

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**Who acts:** dragon · **What happens:** be, say, come in · **To what, where:** ten years, dears · **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:pg23661:12:187
# text = And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: "Come in, dears."
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	dull	dull	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
8	having	have	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	aux	_	_
9	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	cop	_	_
10	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
20	in	in	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	dears	dear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the dragon |  |  |  |  | dull *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | gerund · perfect |  |  |  |  | from ten years |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dragon | ten years |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come in** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | dears |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «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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