---
title: If you say I did, I shall cut your head off at once." — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: If you say I did, I shall cut your head off at once." Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Fiery Dragon], 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/pg23661/13/130/)

<!-- 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 Fiery Dragon\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/) / 130

# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 130

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If you say I did, I shall cut your head off at once."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** say, do, cut off · **To what, where:** head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Fiery Dragon\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg23661:13:130
# text = If you say I did, I shall cut your head off at once."
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	off	off	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **cut off** | shall | I | your head |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 129](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/129/)
- next →: [sentence 131](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/131/)
- ↑ back to [The Fiery Dragon\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/)