---
title: What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," the… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," they said. " Who acts: breathing, children. 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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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 256

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What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," they said. "

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**Who acts:** breathing, children · **What happens:** not be, not look, say · **To what, where:** tame one · **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 (breathing, children), 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:pg23661:12:256
# text = What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," they said. "
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	nsubj	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	're	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	tame	tame	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
11	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'd	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	ccomp	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
17	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | present |  | a tame one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **look** | would | breathing |  |  |  | then | at you | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at you=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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