---
title: "It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping h… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping his face. " Who acts: noise, anything. 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 31

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"It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping his face. "

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**Who acts:** noise, anything · **What happens:** not be, say, wipe · **To what, where:** anything, dungeon, blacksmith, face · **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 (noise, anything), 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:pg23661:12:31
# text = "It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping his face. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
6	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	nsubj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dungeon	dungeon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	blacksmith	blacksmith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	wiping	wipe	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	advcl	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	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** *in a quote* | can | noise | anything |  | the dungeon |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | anything | the blacksmith |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent blacksmith=Topic |
| 3 | **wipe** | gerund | anything *not said here* | blacksmith's face |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent face=Source |

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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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