---
title: It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with little loving… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with little loving grunts. Who acts: oldest. 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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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 228

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It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with little loving grunts.

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**Who acts:** oldest · **What happens:** go up, rub · **To what, where:** Elfin, oldest

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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 (oldest), 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:pg23661:13:228
# text = It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with little loving grunts.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Elfin	Elfin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	rubbed	rub	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	7	obj	_	_
9	against	against	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	loving	loving	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	grunts	grunt	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go up** | past | oldest *= old* |  | Elfin |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **rub** | past | oldest *= old* *not said here* | oldest *= old* |  |  |  | against Elfin; with little loving grunts | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent itself=Theme against he=Destination |

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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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