---
title: She never slapped her hippopotamus when it broke her dolls in its pl… — The Book of Dragons · tree and pragmatics
description: She never slapped her hippopotamus when it broke her dolls in its playful gambols, and she never forgot to feed her rhinoceroses in their little hutch in the backyard. Who acts: gardener, hippopotamus. A sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and th
---

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# The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 3, sentence 16

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She never slapped her hippopotamus when it broke her dolls in its playful gambols, and she never forgot to feed her rhinoceroses in their little hutch in the backyard.

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**Who acts:** gardener, hippopotamus · **What happens:** not slap, break, not forget, feed, gambol · **To what, where:** hippopotamus, dolls, playful gambols, rhinoceroses, little hutch

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This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gardener, hippopotamus), 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:pg23661:3:16
# text = She never slapped her hippopotamus when it broke her dolls in its playful gambols, and she never forgot to feed her rhinoceroses in their little hutch in the backyard.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	slapped	slap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	hippopotamus	hippopotamus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	dolls	doll	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	playful	playful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	gambols	gambol	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	forgot	forget	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	feed	feed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	rhinoceroses	rhinoceros	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
26	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	hutch	hutch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	backyard	backyard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **slap** | past | gardener | gardener's hippopotamus |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hippopotamus=Patient |
| 2 | **break** | past | hippopotamus | gardener's dolls |  | hippopotamus's playful gambols |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer doll=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **forget** | past | gardener |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **feed** | to-infinitive | gardener *not said here* | gardener's rhinoceroses |  | rhinoceroses's little hutch in the backyard |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent rhinoceros=Value in hutch=Location |
| 5 | **gambol** |  | hippopotamus |  |  |  |  |  | nom gambol «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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