---
title: I can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep. — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: I can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep. Who acts: I, it. 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 53

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I can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep.

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**Who acts:** I, it · **What happens:** not think, happen, be · **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 (I, it), 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:pg23661:14:53
# text = I can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	cop	_	_
13	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **think** *speech: other* | can | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **happen** | past | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | must · perfect | I |  |  |  |  | asleep *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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