---
title: "No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp squib. Who acts: you, 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 45

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"No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp squib.

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**Who acts:** you, dragon · **What happens:** not do, say · **To what, where:** spluttering voice · **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 (you, 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:pg23661:12:45
# text = "No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp squib.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	4	discourse	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	spluttering	spluttering	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	like	like	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	damp	damp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	squib	squib	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the dragon |  |  | a spluttering voice and a damp squib |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in voice=Manner |

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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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