---
title: The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to tell the Princess not t… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to tell the Princess not to, and she did. Who acts: nurse, one, Princess. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Fiery Dragon], 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/pg23661/13/150/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 150

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The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to tell the Princess not to, and she did.

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**Who acts:** nurse, one, Princess · **What happens:** be, not tell, do · **To what, where:** Princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (nurse, one, Princess), 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:pg23661:13:150
# text = The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to tell the Princess not to, and she did.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	_
8	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
9	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	10	det	_	_
10	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the nurse |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | no one |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | no one *not said here* |  | the Princess |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent princess=Recipient |
| 4 | **do** | past | Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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