---
title: Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down fo… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin. Who acts: mother, horse. 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 91

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Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin.

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**Who acts:** mother, horse · **What happens:** be, think, settle down, begin · **To what, where:** time · **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 (mother, horse), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg23661:1161`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg23661:12:91
# text = Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin.
1	Its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	settled	settle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
13	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	acl	_	_
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · perfect | horse's mother |  |  |  |  | quiet *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | horse |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **settle down** | past · perfect | mother |  |  |  | night |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** | past | horse | time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **begin** | to-infinitive | mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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