---
title: They just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing c… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: They just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, and annoying the farmers very much. Who acts: hippopotamuses. 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/pg23661/13/49/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 49

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They just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, and annoying the farmers very much.

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**Who acts:** hippopotamuses · **What happens:** crash, do, annoy · **To what, where:** hedges, serious injury, farmers

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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), 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:pg23661:13:49
# text = They just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, and annoying the farmers very much.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	just	just	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	crash	crash	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	through	through	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hedges	hedge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	lumber	lumber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
9	through	through	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	standing	standing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
15	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	injury	injury	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	crops	crop	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	annoying	annoy	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	farmers	farmer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	_
25	very	very	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	much	much	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **crash** | present | hippopotamuses *= hippopotamus* |  |  | the hedges and lumber |  | through the standing corn | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through hedge=Location |
| 2 | **do** | gerund | hippopotamuses *= hippopotamus* *not said here* | serious injury |  |  |  | to the crops | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent injury=Eventuality |
| 3 | **annoy** | gerund | hippopotamuses *= hippopotamus* *not said here* | the farmers |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus farmer=Experiencer |

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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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