---
title: He was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheer… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfully on their hind legs. Who acts: Heart. 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/pg23661/13/162/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 162

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He was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfully on their hind legs.

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**Who acts:** Heart · **What happens:** play, dance · **To what, where:** flute, hind legs

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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 (Heart), 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:pg23661:13:162
# text = He was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfully on their hind legs.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	flute	flute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	around	around	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	parataxis	_	_
14	cheerfully	cheerfully	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past · progressive | Heart | Heart's flute |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flute=Theme |
| 2 | **dance** | past · progressive | Heart |  |  | pigs's hind legs |  | cheerfully *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on leg=Location |

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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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