---
title: "I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. " — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: "I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. " Who acts: Elfin. 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/pg23661/13/78/)

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# The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon\], sentence 78

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"I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. "

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**Who acts:** Elfin · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** Elfin, ragged youth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Elfin), 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:pg23661:13:78
# text = "I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	'm	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	Elfin	Elfin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	pig	pig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	keeper	keeper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	ragged	ragged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Elfin | Elfin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Elfin | the ragged youth |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent youth=Topic |

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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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