---
title: The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked;… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk. Who acts: children, poor dragon. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers],
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/274/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/) / 274

# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 274

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** children, poor dragon · **What happens:** feed, like, eat, say, be · **To what, where:** children, expense, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (children, poor dragon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:12:274
# text = The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	fed	feed	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	expense	expense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	whatever	whatever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	conj	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obj	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	buns	bun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	conj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nsubj	_	_
34	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
35	very	very	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
36	welcome	welcome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	ccomp	_	_
37	to	to	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
38	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	39	nmod:poss	_	_
39	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	_
40	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	41	cc	_	_
41	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feed** | past · passive |  | the children |  | the town's expense |  |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: subject=Recipient |
| 2 | **like** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **eat** | past | children *= child* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | past | the poor dragon |  |  |  |  | to children's bread and milk; welcome *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 273](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/273/)
- next →: [sentence 275](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/275/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/)