---
title: It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him. Who acts: hill, cockatrice. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Kind Little Edmund], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 100

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It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him.

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**Who acts:** hill, cockatrice · **What happens:** not occur, not believe · **To what, where:** shower

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Kind Little Edmund\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hill, cockatrice), 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:pg23661:14:100
# text = It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	occurred	occur	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cockatrice	cockatrice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **occur** | past | hill |  | shower |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **believe** | might | the cockatrice | shower |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |

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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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