---
title: But then she was very old and very kind, and had always said he was… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: But then she was very old and very kind, and had always said he was the best of boys. Who acts: granny, person. 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/pg23661/14/247/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 247

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But then she was very old and very kind, and had always said he was the best of boys.

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**Who acts:** granny, person · **What happens:** be, say · **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 (granny, person), 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:pg23661:14:247
# text = But then she was very old and very kind, and had always said he was the best of boys.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	kind	kind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	14	advmod	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	parataxis	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	ccomp	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | granny |  |  |  | then | old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | granny *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | person |  |  |  |  | of boys; good *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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