---
title: It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long,… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long, yellow hair; all around lay sleeping forms which breathed heavily. Who acts: dell, forms. 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 76

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It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long, yellow hair; all around lay sleeping forms which breathed heavily.

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**Who acts:** dell, forms · **What happens:** be, sit, lie, sleep, breathe · **To what, where:** fire, ragged youth, forms

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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 (dell, forms), 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:pg23661:13:76
# text = It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long, yellow hair; all around lay sleeping forms which breathed heavily.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	ragged	ragged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	all	all	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	around	around	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
24	sleeping	sleep	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	xcomp	_	_
25	forms	form	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	27	nsubj	_	_
27	breathed	breathe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	acl:relcl	_	_
28	heavily	heavily	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | dell | a fire |  |  |  | of sticks | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | past | dell | a ragged youth |  |  |  | with long yellow hair | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location youth=Theme |
| 3 | **lie** | past | dell *not said here* |  |  |  |  | all, around *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **sleep** | gerund | dell *not said here* | forms |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent form=Theme |
| 5 | **breathe** | past | forms |  |  |  |  | heavily *property* | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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