---
title: "So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering. Who acts: John, teeth. 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 55

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"So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering.

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**Who acts:** John, teeth · **What happens:** understand, say, chatter · **To what, where:** you · **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 (John, teeth), 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:pg23661:12:55
# text = "So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
8	before	before	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	appos	_	_
16	chattering	chatter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** *in a quote* | past | John | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | John *not said here* |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **chatter** | gerund | John's teeth *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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