---
title: "We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble anima… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.'" Who acts: We, 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/12/82/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers\], sentence 82

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"We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.'"

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**Who acts:** We, John · **What happens:** fasten up, say, be · **To what, where:** horse, noble animal · **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 (We, 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:pg23661:12:82
# text = "We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.'"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	_
4	fasten	fasten	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	noble	noble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fasten up** *in a quote* | present | We | a horse |  |  |  | always *property* | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | John | the noble animal |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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