---
title: "You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. " — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. " Who acts: You, blacksmith. 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/pg23661/12/65/)

<!-- 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/) / 65

# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 65

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You, blacksmith · **What happens:** do, say · **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 (You, blacksmith), 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:pg23661:12:65
# text = "You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	rivet	rivet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | could | You |  |  |  |  | with a rivet and sir; certainly *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | blacksmith |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/64/)
- next →: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/66/)
- ↑ back to [The Dragon Tamers\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/)