---
title: "I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John. Who acts: John. 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 70

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"I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John.

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**Who acts:** John · **What happens:** not want, eat, say · **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), 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:pg23661:12:70
# text = "I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	xcomp	_	_
9	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **want** *in a quote* | present · do-support | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive | John *not said here* |  |  |  |  | last *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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