---
title: When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon beg… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates. Who acts: Johnnie, poor captive dragon, large tears. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/268/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 268

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When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates.

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**Who acts:** Johnnie, poor captive dragon, large tears · **What happens:** think, trick, begin, weep, fall down · **To what, where:** Johnnie, rusty plates · **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 (Johnnie, poor captive dragon, large tears), 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:pg23661:12:268
# text = When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	tricked	trick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	captive	captive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
22	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
23	down	down	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
24	over	over	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
26	rusty	rusty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	plates	plate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Johnnie |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **trick** | past · perfect · passive |  | Johnnie |  |  |  |  | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **begin** | past | the poor captive dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **weep** | to-infinitive | the poor captive dragon *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **fall down** | past | the large tears |  |  | Johnnie's rusty plates |  | down *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme over plate=Location |

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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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