---
title: We ought to do something to settle the dragon and save the little ch… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: We ought to do something to settle the dragon and save the little children." Who acts: We. 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/pg23661/13/193/)

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[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/) / 193

# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 193

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We ought to do something to settle the dragon and save the little children."

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**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** do, settle, save · **To what, where:** something, dragon, little children

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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 (We), 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:pg23661:13:193
# text = We ought to do something to settle the dragon and save the little children."
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	settle	settle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	save	save	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | ought | We | something |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Eventuality |
| 2 | **settle** | to-infinitive | We *not said here* | the dragon |  |  |  |  | vn odge-46-1 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme dragon=Location |
| 3 | **save** | present | We *not said here* | the little children |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Theme |

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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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