---
title: Edmund had run back to the cockatrice, and it had told him what to do. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: Edmund had run back to the cockatrice, and it had told him what to do. Who acts: Edmund. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Kind Little Edmund], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/209/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Book of Dragons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/) / [Kind Little Edmund\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/) / 209

# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 209

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Edmund had run back to the cockatrice, and it had told him what to do.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Edmund · **What happens:** run back, tell, do · **To what, where:** town, drakling · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Edmund), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg23661:14:209
# text = Edmund had run back to the cockatrice, and it had told him what to do.
1	Edmund	Edmund	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	run	run	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cockatrice	cockatrice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run back** | past · perfect | Edmund |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · perfect · passive |  | town | drakling |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 208](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/208/)
- next →: [sentence 210](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/210/)
- ↑ back to [Kind Little Edmund\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/14/)