---
title: "If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could ca… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you." Who acts: we, you, giant. 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/pg23661/12/194/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 194

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"If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you."

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**Who acts:** we, you, giant · **What happens:** let, lose, manage, run away, catch · **To what, where:** you

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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 (we, you, giant), 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:pg23661:12:194
# text = "If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	let	let	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	loose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	manage	manage	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	away	away	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | we | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **lose** *in a quote* | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **manage** *in a quote* | might | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **run away** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **catch** *in a quote* | could | giant | you |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=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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