---
title: He never shed a single tear for his poor tame hippopotamuses who had… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: He never shed a single tear for his poor tame hippopotamuses who had eaten from his hand and followed him faithfully in all the pleasures of the chase for so many years. Who acts: Prince, poor tame hippopotamuses. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Fiery Dragon], with its dependen
---

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 70

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He never shed a single tear for his poor tame hippopotamuses who had eaten from his hand and followed him faithfully in all the pleasures of the chase for so many years.

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**Who acts:** Prince, poor tame hippopotamuses · **What happens:** not shed, eat, follow, please · **To what, where:** single tear, hand, Prince, pleasures, chase

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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 (Prince, poor tame 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:pg23661:13:70
# text = He never shed a single tear for his poor tame hippopotamuses who had eaten from his hand and followed him faithfully in all the pleasures of the chase for so many years.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	shed	shed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	tear	tear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	tame	tame	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	hippopotamuses	hippopotamus	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	followed	follow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	faithfully	faithfully	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	25	det:predet	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	pleasures	pleasure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	chase	chase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	for	for	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	so	so	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **shed** | past | Prince | a single tear |  |  |  | for Prince's poor tame hippopotamuses | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location tear=Source |
| 2 | **eat** | past · perfect | Prince's poor tame hippopotamuses |  |  | Prince's hand | year |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from hand=Source |
| 3 | **follow** | past | Prince's poor tame hippopotamuses *not said here* | Prince |  | all pleasures of the chase |  | faithfully *property* | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent he=Theme in pleasure=Trajectory |
| 4 | **please** |  |  | the chase |  |  |  |  | nom pleasure «feeling transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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