---
title: And wise people shook their heads and foretold a decline in the Nati… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: And wise people shook their heads and foretold a decline in the National Love of Sport. Who acts: wise people. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 2, sentence 16

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And wise people shook their heads and foretold a decline in the National Love of Sport.

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**Who acts:** wise people · **What happens:** shake, foretell · **To what, where:** heads, decline, National Love

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise people), 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:pg23661:2:16
# text = And wise people shook their heads and foretold a decline in the National Love of Sport.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	foretold	foretell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	decline	decline	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	National	National	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	Love	Love	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	Sport	Sport	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | wise people | people's heads |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **foretell** | participle | wise people *not said here* | a decline |  | the National Love of Sport |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent decline=Theme |

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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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