---
title: The dragon swallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows b… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The dragon swallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows bits of meat. Who acts: dragon, dog. 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/pg23661/13/62/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 62

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The dragon swallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows bits of meat.

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**Who acts:** dragon, dog · **What happens:** swallow · **To what, where:** hippopotamuses, bits

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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 (dragon, dog), 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:pg23661:13:62
# text = The dragon swallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows bits of meat.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	swallowed	swallow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	6	det:predet	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hippopotamuses	hippopotamus	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	swallows	swallow	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
12	bits	bit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swallow** | past | the dragon | all hippopotamuses |  |  |  |  | vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hippopotamus=Patient |
| 2 | **swallow** | present | a dog | bits of meat |  |  |  |  | vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Patient |

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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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