---
title: And the dragon heard the voice and said: "Why, whatever's the matter… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And the dragon heard the voice and said: "Why, whatever's the matter with Baby? Who acts: dragon, whatever. 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/pg23661/14/211/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 211

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And the dragon heard the voice and said: "Why, whatever's the matter with Baby?

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**Who acts:** dragon, whatever · **What happens:** hear, say, be · **To what, where:** voice, matter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (dragon, whatever), 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:pg23661:14:211
# text = And the dragon heard the voice and said: "Why, whatever's the matter with Baby?
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	whatever	whatever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Baby	Baby	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | the dragon | the voice |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the dragon *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | whatever | the matter |  |  |  | with Baby | 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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