---
title: And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ough… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought to have been. Who acts: hands. 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/pg23661/13/222/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 222

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And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought to have been.

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**Who acts:** hands · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** black cinders

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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 (hands), 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:pg23661:13:222
# text = And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought to have been.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
6	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	cinders	cinder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
11	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	14	advmod	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
17	been	be	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | hands *= hand* | black cinders |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | to-infinitive · perfect | hands *= hand* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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