---
title: To begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt lik… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: To begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt like pigs, and their grunt is very big and fierce. Who acts: hippopotamuses, grunt. 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/pg23661/13/47/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 47

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To begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt like pigs, and their grunt is very big and fierce.

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**Who acts:** hippopotamuses, grunt · **What happens:** begin, not bay, grunt, be

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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 (hippopotamuses, grunt), 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:pg23661:13:47
# text = To begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt like pigs, and their grunt is very big and fierce.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	hippopotamuses	hippopotamus	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
6	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	bay	bay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	like	like	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	hounds	hound	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
12	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	grunt	grunt	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
14	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	grunt	grunt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	very	very	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	fierce	fierce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | to-infinitive | hippopotamuses *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **bay** | present · do-support | hippopotamuses |  |  |  |  | like hounds | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **grunt** | present | hippopotamuses *= hippopotamus* |  |  |  |  | like pigs | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | hippopotamuses's grunt |  |  |  |  | big *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | hippopotamuses's grunt *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **grunt** |  | hippopotamuses *= hippopotamus* |  |  |  |  |  | nom grunt «event intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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