---
title: And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there that presently they very nearly did believe it. Who acts: wife. 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 35

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And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there that presently they very nearly did believe it.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** try, believe, be · **To what, where:** nothing, face

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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 (wife), 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:pg23661:12:35
# text = And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there that presently they very nearly did believe it.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	cop	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
13	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
14	that	that	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	presently	presently	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	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 | **try** | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **believe** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | infinitive |  | nothing |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **believe** *not said to happen* | past · do-support | wife | face |  |  |  | nearly, presently *property* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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