---
title: Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise l… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like a large gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon. Who acts: 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/143/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 143

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Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like a large gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon.

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**Who acts:** cockatrice · **What happens:** cluck, be · **To what, where:** cockatrice, big dragon

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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 (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:pg23661:14:143
# text = Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like a large gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon.
1	Of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	9	advmod	_	_
2	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
5	clucking	cluck	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	cop	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cockatrice	cockatrice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
15	like	like	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
19	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
20	after	after	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
23	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	26	cop	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cluck** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past · perfect |  | the cockatrice and the big noise like a large gentleman after dinner |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | past · perfect | the cockatrice and the big noise like a large gentleman after dinner | the big dragon |  |  |  |  | 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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