---
title: It only came out for a minute, but she saw it quite plainly, and she… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It only came out for a minute, but she saw it quite plainly, and she said to herself: "Dear me, what a curious, shiny, bright-looking creature! Who acts: hedge, Princess. 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/pg23661/13/15/)

<!-- 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/) / 15

# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It only came out for a minute, but she saw it quite plainly, and she said to herself: "Dear me, what a curious, shiny, bright-looking creature!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** hedge, Princess · **What happens:** come out, see, say, look, creature · **To what, where:** hedge, Princess · **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 (hedge, Princess), 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:pg23661:13:15
# text = It only came out for a minute, but she saw it quite plainly, and she said to herself: "Dear me, what a curious, shiny, bright-looking creature!
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	out	out	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	minute	minute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	plainly	plainly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	parataxis	_	_
24	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
26	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	35	nsubj	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
28	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	shiny	shiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
32	bright	bright	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	32	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	35	amod	_	_
35	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come out** | past | hedge |  |  |  | minute | out *property* | vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **see** | past | Princess | hedge |  |  |  | plainly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Princess |  | Princess |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to herself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **look** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **creature** *in a quote* |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Fiery Dragon\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/)