---
title: And poor Edmund could not say a word, though he knew how wrong they… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And poor Edmund could not say a word, though he knew how wrong they were. Who acts: poor Edmund, goose, Edmund. 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 245

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And poor Edmund could not say a word, though he knew how wrong they were.

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**Who acts:** poor Edmund, goose, Edmund · **What happens:** not say, know, be · **To what, where:** word · **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 (poor Edmund, goose, Edmund), 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:pg23661:14:245
# text = And poor Edmund could not say a word, though he knew how wrong they were.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Edmund	Edmund	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
13	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
14	wrong	wrong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | could | poor Edmund | a word |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |
| 2 | **know** | past | goose |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | Edmund |  |  |  |  | wrong *property* | 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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