---
title: "Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon? Who acts: dragon, you. 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/pg23661/12/259/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 259

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"Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon?

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**Who acts:** dragon, you · **What happens:** look, say, not pretend, be · **To what, where:** tame dragon · **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, you), 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:pg23661:12:259
# text = "Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
6	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	pretend	pretend	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	tame	tame	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  | here |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **pretend** *in a quote* | could | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | the dragon *= dragon* | a tame dragon |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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