---
title: And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anythi… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk. Who acts: Dragon. 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 278

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And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk.

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**Who acts:** Dragon · **What happens:** say, not know, like, eat · **To what, where:** anything · **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), 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:pg23661:12:278
# text = And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
10	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
13	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	advmod	_	_
14	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux	_	_
15	liked	like	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
16	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	xcomp	_	_
17	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obj	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **know** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Dragon |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **like** *in a quote* | could · perfect | Dragon |  |  |  | ever |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **eat** *not said to happen, in a quote* | gerund | Dragon *not said here* | anything |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Patient |

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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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