---
title: "Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the c… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the claw of the dragon. " Who acts: Deary. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/46/)

<!-- 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/) / 46

# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 46

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the claw of the dragon. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Deary · **What happens:** say, tremble · **To what, where:** more · **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 (Deary), 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:pg23661:12:46
# text = "Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the claw of the dragon. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Deary	deary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	deary	deary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
13	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	obj	_	_
14	than	than	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	18	advmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	claw	claw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Deary and deary  me |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tremble** | gerund | Deary and deary  me *not said here* | more |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location more=Theme |

<!-- .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 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/45/)
- next →: [sentence 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/47/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/)