---
title: The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell clo… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell close by. Who acts: wood. 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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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 75

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The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell close by.

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**Who acts:** wood · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** red glow, dell

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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 (wood), 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:pg23661:13:75
# text = The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell close by.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	glow	glow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	dell	dell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the wood |  |  |  |  | about Prince; black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the wood *not said here* | a red glow |  | a dell |  |  | tree rules |

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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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