---
title: "Let them take care of themselves," she said, when the Princess begg… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "Let them take care of themselves," she said, when the Princess begged to be allowed to go out and help to take care of the children. " Who acts: you, ferns, Princess. 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/pg23661/13/36/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 36

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"Let them take care of themselves," she said, when the Princess begged to be allowed to go out and help to take care of the children. "

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**Who acts:** you, ferns, Princess · **What happens:** let, take, say, beg, allow, go out · **To what, where:** ferns, care · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, ferns, Princess), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:13:36
# text = "Let them take care of themselves," she said, when the Princess begged to be allowed to go out and help to take care of the children. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	allowed	allow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	ccomp	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	out	out	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	conj	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
27	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
32	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* | ferns *= fern* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** *in a quote* | infinitive | ferns *= fern* *not said here* | care |  |  |  | of ferns *= fern* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent care=Theme of themselves=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **allow** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **go out** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **help** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 8 | **take** | to-infinitive |  | care |  |  |  | of the children | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent care=Theme of child=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .note -->
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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