---
title: There was a brass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a brass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING, and a white label that said CALL ME AT THREE. Who acts: brass plate, door, white label. 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/pg23661/14/80/)

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# The Book of Dragons, Kind Little Edmund\], sentence 80

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There was a brass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING, and a white label that said CALL ME AT THREE.

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**Who acts:** brass plate, door, white label · **What happens:** be, say, call · **To what, where:** white label, door, ME · **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 (brass plate, door, white label), 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:pg23661:14:80
# text = There was a brass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING, and a white label that said CALL ME AT THREE.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	brass	brass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	plate	plate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	MRS.	MRS.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	D.	D.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	KNOCK	knock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
14	AND	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	RING	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	label	label	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
22	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	_
23	CALL	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	ccomp	_	_
24	ME	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	AT	at	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	THREE	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a brass plate | a white label |  | the door; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on door=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the door |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a white label |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **call** | infinitive |  | ME |  |  |  | at THREE | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme PP.recipient PP.stimulus»: agent=Agent i=Theme at three=Stimulus |

<!-- .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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