---
title: But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as th… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as though she would never let him go. Who acts: Sabrinetta, nurse, Elfin. 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/pg23661/13/255/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 255

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But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as though she would never let him go.

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**Who acts:** Sabrinetta, nurse, Elfin · **What happens:** throw, hold, not let, go · **To what, where:** arms, Elfin

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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 (Sabrinetta, nurse, Elfin), 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:pg23661:13:255
# text = But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as though she would never let him go.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Sabrinetta	Sabrinetta	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	round	round	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	Elfin	Elfin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
15	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw** | past | Sabrinetta | nurse's arms |  |  |  | round Elfin's neck | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arm=Theme |
| 2 | **hold** | past | Sabrinetta *not said here* | Elfin |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **let** | would | nurse | Elfin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **go** | infinitive | Elfin *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «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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